In this portrait by an unknown artist and its pair (1952.46.2), a New Haven husband and wife proudly display their material success, but they hold in their hands warnings about the gradual demise of all worldly things. Pediatrician Hezekiah Beardsley rests on his knee Edward Gibbon’s recently published Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which implicitly admonished America’s imperialistic ambitions. Elizabeth reads Meditations and Contemplations by the religious revivalist Reverend James Hervey, who proclaimed that, like the blossoms between Elizabeth’s fingers, "Ye flowery Nations, Ye must all decay." As if the books were portents of their owners’ fate, the Beardsleys died soon after the portraits were completed.