Running with a net after a butterfly is about chasing ‘fleeting time’ – this is essentially what the gentleman in the painting is doing.

We see how, as he races on, the net in his hand is billowing in the wind, filling up as if to confirm the fundamental principle of a businessman that “time is money”. There is nothing in the world more valuable than time!

“Everything lost can be recovered, even money, the only thing lost forever is time wasted”

Murphy’s Law for beginners

The enterpriser’s slogan “catch time and trap it in your checkbook” is reinforced by the ‘golden’ moon of a clockface on Big Ben and its counterpart ‘sealing’ the net. It is shortly after eight o’clock in the morning – the time trading opens at the City’s Stock Exchange.

The butterfly is chosen to represent time for a reason: her life cycle starts from a chrysalis crawling in the dust to an Imago specimen with its fancy flight trajectory in the sky. It is an analogy of the journey of human life from its rat race on earth to soaring up into the far-away realms of cosmos.

Additional symbolism:

• The image of Christ holding a butterfly in the palm of His hand is a reference to resurrection (this probably gave rise to the notion of human soul being a ‘closed book’ – a person’s heart remaining unfathomed; 
• From dusk till dawn: the sun goes down eastwards into the waters of the netherworld and comes out again in full glory – see also the story of Jonah emerging safe and sound from the belly of the whale;
• Descending into hell – the soul travelling through death to resurrection – is the cycle of a butterfly from life (bright-colored caterpillar) through death (dark chrysalis) to the spreading of its wings;
• A symbolic image of the soul as a butterfly rising up to the sun.