The Child Blows Bubbles
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Child Blows Bubbles
Scripture Reference:
- Job 14 (further images / scripture text)
Description: A child blows bubbles from atop a pedestal inscribed, “Sic se Habet Mundus” (So goes the world), as a woman and two younger children watch from nearby. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712) was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem (which had been used earlier in a 1699 book by Elizabetha Jocelyn) and for the brief poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant Scripture texts are Job 14:1-2; Psalm 144:3-4; Ecclesiastes 1:2; Isaiah 40:6-7; and 1 John 2:17.
Motto:
What is all the Worldly joy and Play?
An empty wind and Water-bubble.
Poem:
Like the round blown Bubble,
That after gracefully appearing,
(To the delight of the childish mind)
Has vanished in the blink of an eye:
So the world in her state,
Quickly deserts her lovers.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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