In "Trompe l'oeil with studio wall and vanitas still life" (1668, Statens Museum for Kunst) Gijsbrechts presents a virtual inventory of seventeenth-century symbols of transience: the skull with the ears of corn, the hourglass, the extinguished candle, the soap bubble and artist paraphernalia. It contains two miniature portraits and one empty slot for another. The top left portrait is of Emperor Leopold I. The other portrait is not a self-portrait and it is not clear who it represents. The portraits allude to the mortality the deceased, even while glorifying him, within a spiritual and traditional vanitas iconography. The painting also includes the painter's "calling card" in the form of a note bearing the words "A Monsuer / Monsuer Cornelius Norbertus / Gijsbrechts Conterfeÿer ggl. In. / Coppenhagen." By painting the upper right corner of the canvas as if it had become detached from its support, he points to the fact that even the canvas of the painting (and thus the fame of the painter) cannot withstand the relentless progression of time and its destructive force. In this way, the artist fused his trompe l'oeil technique with the vanitas subject.