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The Merchant and his Wife
Marinus van Reymerswale (Netherlandish, 1490–1546)
1540
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- height 86 cm, width 115.5 cm, height 114.7 cm, width 143.8 cm
- Culture
- Netherlandish
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
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.
