Avaritia (1558)
The personification of Avaritia is a seated lady guarding a lapful of money, while she reaches into a handy treasure
chest which a lizard or crocodile demon fills from a huge broken jug. The eyes of Avaritia seem to look down at her
hoard of gold; but close study of the original drawing shows that it is possible, as Tolnay believes, that Brueghel meant
to depict her as blind. In any case her attention is fixed on gold; she sees nothing of what goes on around her. She
wears a crescent-shaped head covering, a shape symbolic of the procession of procuress, for Avaritia violates honor
and decency for the sake of money.
Near her feet crouches the toad, her animal counterpart. He was believed to betoken avarice because, according to
Cesare Ripa'sIconologia, a toad is able to devour dirt and sand, so abundantly available, yet witholds eating for fear
that he should not, after all, have enough.
A dozen different groups and actions compete for attention around the fantastic landscape. Behind Avaritia is the hut
of the moneylender. He takes in pawn the clothing and utensils of the poor. They are left naked, like the man clad only
in visored cloak, handing over his plate. To the right of the hut sits a pair naked except for the crude "shorts" which
some evil-minded censor scratched onto the reproduction! Before them is a large tally-sheet. It shows accumulated
debts. A winged monster points to the reckoning. These men, in the words of the proverb, have "sold their souls to
the devil," and all for gold. In the original drawing, their faces express sharp despair and horror. In the engraving, van
der Heyden- here, as so often-blunted Brueghel's sharp point; their expressions are ambiguous.
Nearby, a naked miser loses coins as a grinning reptile monster rolls him in a barrel, spiked inside. Money spills from
the barrel itself.
Victims of the moneylender are caught in the shears, like the one hanging beside his door. The shears symbolize
cheating and fraud. Yet even the moneylender is a victim; he is being robbed, more openly. A thief has climbed the
roof and reaches in to steal. The avaricious cannot retain what they have snatched in their greed.
The Orientally ornamented onion-like savings bank or pot on the roof holds a fish, very likely a shark, symbol of
rapacious, insatiable greed. From the cone on top projects a stick, dangling a huge purse or money-pouch.
Crossbowmen to the right use it as a target. Their arrows are tipped not with points but with money. The pouch has
been pierced and the money falls out. As they shoot their money-arrows in an effort to get more, two smaller figures
farther rightare cutting away a purse. Greed preys on greed. Tolnay has traced several Flemish proverbs in the
multiple symbolisms of this group.
In the farther background, same side, a man rides backward on an ox followed by a figure burdened under sheets or
cloting.
Still furter, a monstrous bellows fans a fire which sends smoke through a hat pierced by a saw-like sword. Tolnay
finds this a symbol of fanning the passions into flame, and the men beating hammers alongside, he call coiners of
money.
In the right foreground, a bird-tailed beggar holds out his bowl toward a gruesome monster composed solely of a
great face with leggs. At the beggar's rear a demon bird pecks, probably a reference to the common identification of
insatiable greed and constipation.
At lower left a winged demon claws sold from a great bag, near a dead hollow tree-symbol of sterility and vanity-in
which a pot of gold has been hidden. A cross projects from the dead wood, like an afterthought.
Above, several demons conduct a pair of naked and terrified sinners while one gesticulates toward the shears as if to
point out what awaits. In a bramble thicket behind them, a victim is buried almost to his neck.
Behind this group an armed assault attacks another Flemish savings pot (piggy-bank equivalent). With a long pole an
attacker is poking a coin out of the slot near the top. Another has climbed a ladder and is about to smash the pot.
Below, some attackers already scramble to grab coins on the ground.
Nearby (to their right), an ornate castle with Oriental design elements is ablaze. Smoke pours from the domes which
resemble great beehives. In the sky a fish-bird monster, is plunging like a dive-bomber.
In the farthest background great blazes destroy a city and forts. There is no safequarding the wealth to get which the
avaricious sacrifice honor, decency, sense of shame, and divine commands.
this document: Engraving Avaritia (1558), Printroom of Leiden University, Leiden 1995.
last update: Wendy Hazebroek, 4 July 1995.