Vanity (1907) — Frank Cadogan Cowper

Frank Cadogan Cowper, often called the last of the Pre-Raphaelites, painted Vanity in 1907. A red-haired woman in Renaissance dress holds a silver hand-mirror, absorbed in her own reflection. The Italian Renaissance influence dominates: her jewelled headband — a ferronière — signals 15th-century status, and the serpentine pattern on her gown echoes the Renaissance master Giulio Romano. Her proud, half-closed eyes read as a kind of blindness — so lost in her own beauty that she can't see how fleeting it is.

That's the point of the title. This is a vanitas painting: a meditation on mortality disguised as a portrait. The detail that makes it click — the ripe grapes behind her. At their peak and about to turn, they echo the woman herself: neither beauty nor luxury lasts. The painting hangs in the Royal Academy, London.