lush nature...and a rabbit

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:100)

There's a capital from a tumbled column off to the right, and the horizon stretches off to a serene line, to put us in mind of how short our own span will be.  The vase of huge, but already fading flowers reminds us yet again how our own freshness will droop and fall - but what's that meek rabbit doing hiding down there?  Rabbits usually pop up as reminders of fertility, but it's hard to think of this one as symbolizing anything so brazen.  Maybe he's there to tell us that pollinate how you will, you can never win against the pageant of Time.  That's my two cents, anyway, and this is Flowers in a Vase with Rabbit by the Dutch painter Carel de Vogelaar (lived and died in Italy; 1653-95).