a rich Flemish merchant, to thank for the commissions for the funerary monuments of both Van den Eynde and Vrijburgh. De Visschere, an art enthusiast, served in the administration of Santa Maria dell’Anima, and was indeed involved in overseeing Duquesnoy's commission for the tomb of Van den Eynde. Subject The funerary monument is an epitaph, or cenotaph, to Ferdinand van den Eynde, a Netherlandish merchant and art collector from Antwerp, who was a member of the Netherlandish colony in Rome. Ferdinand was brother to Jan van den Eynde, a Flemish merchant established in Naples, one of the richest men in the city, and its most prominent art collector. His son, Marquis Ferdinand van den Eynde, became an art collector as well. Ferdinand van den Eynde died prematurely in 1630. Style and composition The viewer is firstly attracted by the mastery of the artist, the naturalism of the putti, the milky flesh of the infants (with the marble that, according to Rubens, was "softened into living flesh"), and thence led to contemplate their actions. As observed by Bellori: one of them wraps part of his head in the cloth as a sign of sadness and holds in his hand the hourglass of death. This certainly is the most beautiful little putto that Franscesco's chisel animated Bellori also stressed the act of mourning of the righthand putto, evident in both his expression and the gesture of covering his face with the drape. Yet, at the same time, with his hourglass in hand and his eyes covered, "the putto becomes an infant personification of blind death." In addition, as noted by Estelle Lingo, "because the infant's posture can be understood as the result of his struggle to lift the drape from the tomb, the figure seems to play upon the theoretical criticism that the infant's youth made him unfit for his 'monumental' task." The putto on the left, on the other hand, appears fully absorbed in raising his side of the cloth: "only after long contemplation the viewer may notice that this infant, too, carries an attribute, the long trumpet of fame. Grasped in his left hand, the instrument is almost entirely covered by the cloth, though the outline of its flared end may be discerned beneath the drape when one looks for it. The use of an attribute so well hidden is surprising, but serves to underscore Duquesnoy's conception of the tomb