Art history is often presented with various kinds of puzzles, including how to reconcile what an artist has said about a work when its visual evidence suggests the opposite. The great "Vanitas I" by Georges Braque, at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, is a classic example.

This bold and intensely colored composition was painted in 1938, the first of several related still-life works Braque would create over the next six years, the artist selecting from a menu of skull, cross, water pitcher, fish and...