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Battle for the Gold Staff (Dominion of the World)
Also titled Strijd om de gouden stok (heerschappij van de wereld)
Adam Willaerts (London, 1577–1664)
c. 1615 - c. 1630
- Medium
- oil paint (paint), oak (wood)
- Classification
- painting
- Dimensions
- outer size: depth 6 cm (support incl. frame)
- Museum
- Rijksmuseum
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions violence, death or gore. How works are placed
About this work
Two gentlemen vie for control of a gold staff. It symbolizes dominion over the world’s seas. For whoever rules the sea, controls trade, beggars his foes, and becomes rich himself. The man at the right stands for the Netherlands, the one at the left for Spain. The men next to them personifying England and Venice, among other nations, look on in suspense. The scene in the background, the Republic’s naval victory at Gibraltar in 1607, seems to predict who will triumph.
