Vanity

[1] The related term vainglory is now often seen as an archaic synonym for vanity, but originally meant considering one's own capabilities and that God's help was not needed, i.e. unjustified boasting;[2] although glory is now seen as having a predominantly positive meaning,[citation needed] the Latin term from which it derives, gloria, roughly means boasting, and was often used as a negative criticism.

[6] Although the term vanitas (Latin, "emptiness") originally meant not obsession by one's appearance, but the ultimate fruitlessness of humankind's efforts in this world, the phrase summarizes the complete preoccupation of the subject of the picture.

"The artist invites us to pay lip-service to condemning her," writes Edwin Mullins, "while offering us full permission to drool over her.

In his table of the seven deadly sins, Hieronymus Bosch depicts a bourgeois woman admiring herself in a mirror held up by a devil; behind her is an open jewelry box.

Such artistic works served to warn viewers of the ephemeral nature of youthful beauty, as well as the brevity of human life and the inevitability of death.