The Merchant and his Wife
Marinus van Reymerswale
1540
The merchant - or, perhaps more likely, moneylender – is busy weighing his money, perhaps to make sure that there are no forgeries involved. In the back ground his stack of loan contracts is bulging. The wife eagerly monitors his work, and no one pays heed to the boy in the doorframe. With hands like claws and crowned by extravagant headgear this man illustrates the concept of greed. On the top of a shelf stands an extinguished candle. All light and soul has vanished from a world wholly engrossed with mammon. Reymerswale has painted several variations of this motif, all of them referencing the prototype painted by the Dutch artist Quinten Massys (Louvre).
SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen · Image: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Public domain · Text: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark (text: Peter Nørgaard Larsen) (adapted), CC0