Artwork
Avarice
Avarice is an ink print by the Renaissance artist Jacob Matham. It dates from 1587 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Jacob Matham’s print *Avarice*, executed around 1587, is an engraving on laid paper. The work presents an allegorical female figure surrounded by symbols of wealth, rendered in the precise line work typical of late‑sixteenth‑century Northern European printmaking.
Subject & Meaning
The central figure is a woman whose expression is contorted with greed, clutching a heavy sack of coins. She is dressed in elaborate robes, holds a small birdcage in one hand and a key in the other, and stands before a diminishing landscape of tree and rocky hill, underscoring the moral theme that avarice eclipses the natural world.
Technique & Style
Matham employed the engraving process, incising fine, intersecting lines into a copper plate and transferring the image onto laid paper. The work relies on strong chiaroscuro created by dense cross‑hatching, which intensifies the figure’s tension and highlights the metallic sheen of the coins.
History & Provenance
The print originates from Matham’s workshop in the Netherlands, where he was active as a reproductive engraver and creator of original designs. *Avarice* survives in several museum collections, attesting to its circulation among collectors of moralizing prints in the late Renaissance.
Artist & collection
