"Death and the Miser" is a powerful oil on panel painting created by Hieronymus Bosch between 1485 and 1490. This intense moral allegory originates from the rich visual traditions of Netherlandish culture during the late medieval period, specifically spanning 1401 to 1500. The work exemplifies the highly detailed realism and complex symbolism characteristic of Northern Renaissance art.
The composition depicts a dramatic confrontation inside a dimly lit chamber where a miser lies dying in his bed. The scene is saturated with visual indicators of temptation and imminent judgment. An angel attempts to draw the man’s attention toward a distant crucifix positioned high above, symbolizing spiritual salvation. However, the miser's focus remains fixed downward, where a menacing demon emerges from beneath the bed curtains to offer him a pouch of gold. Bosch emphasizes the avarice of the dying man, who still clutches a rosary in one hand while reaching toward the earthly riches with the other.
In the foreground, the artist has included relics of the miser’s life of greed: discarded armor, a staff, and an extinguished candle, symbolic of a life wasted and nearing its end. The meticulous detail employed by Bosch, particularly in rendering the varied demons and grotesque creatures that populate the lower registers of the work, heightens the painting’s sense of foreboding and moral urgency. The piece is often interpreted as an illustration of the popular devotional text, the Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying), which instructed Christians on resisting the final temptations of the devil.
This seminal late 15th-century panel, which may have originally served as the exterior wing of a dismantled altarpiece, is now housed in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Due to the work's historical importance and age, high-resolution prints and digital reproductions are widely available through public domain archives, allowing scholars and the public continued access to this profound moral warning against earthly greed.
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