The Merchant and his Wife

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Artist: Marinus van Reymerswaele (Netherlandish, 1490–1546)
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 86 × 115.5 cm
Museum: SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
Rights: Public Domain Mark

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). Like Pieter Aertsen (also featured in this room) Reymerswale was from the prosperous city of Antwerp, one of the leading art centres of the 16th century. Apparently the wealth and enormous choice of goods available brought in its wake a similar demand for warnings against the unforgivable deadly sins.