Both this work, attributed to Jacques Hupin, and Still Life with Red Tablecloth, Armillary Sphere and Opulent Tableware, in a Sumptuous Architectural Setting [Allegory of Time], also an allegory of time, were originally included in this collection as works by Antonio de Pereda (1611-1678), undoubtedly due to their similarity with other works that had been wrongly attributed to the latter. It is not difficult to inscribe both pieces within the still insufficiently studied circle of mid 17^th century Italian and French artists who specialised in this type of painting, lending particular attention to splendid oriental tablecloths, executed with the utmost virtuosity and invariably accompanied by gold, silver or bronze vases and occasionally fruit and flowers or musical instruments.

There are records of two Italian artists from the first half of the 17^th century ―Francesco Maltese and Benedetto Fioravanti― whose style and subject matter were imitated in the second half of the century, and even well into the early 18^th century, both in Italy and France. For the style and mastery in the rendering of the tablecloth, this still life could be related to a very similar one by Maltese, although Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez believes it more likely to be by his circle of imitators and more specifically Jacques Hupin (active in the mid 1600s) given the similarity with some of his known works both in size and subject matter and in the treatment of the metals and the red tablecloth.

The inclusion of a clock, symbolising the transience of life, together with the unstable balance of the objects seemingly on the point of collapsing, could well be construed as a metaphor of the frailty of the moment we live in and of the futility of material riches, which could vanish at any given moment. What we have here, then, is an allegory of time.