Seafaring Sunday: The Curious Portrait

The gentleman above is 17th century seafarer Captain Thomas Smith and the painting is a self-portrait.  It may, in fact, be the only surviving painting by Smith.  The Captain was a Bostonian and a Puritan and his seeming disregard for the vanities of his success as a sea captain can be not only seen but felt in this painting.  Clearly, Captain Smith had his own mortality on his mind when he took up his brush. 

A poem is inscribed on the paper under the skull on the left, and this continues the overarching theme of  earthly success being nothing but vanity:

Why Why should the World be Minding
Therein a World of Evils Finding
Then Farewell World; Farewell thy Jarres
thy Joies thy Toies thy Wiles thy Warrs
Truth Sound Retreat; I am not sorye.
The Eternal draws to Him my heart.
By Faith (which can thy Force Subvert)
To Crown me (after Grace) with Glory.

Poor Captain Smith.  Even in eschewing the evils of the world, he could not bring himself to imagine anything for his immortal soul but Glory.

Header: Self~Portrait of Captain Thomas Smith of Boston c 1680 via American Gallery