Avarice (Avaritia) from The Seven Deadly Sins

Print • Prints

Created in 1558 during the Renaissance period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Pieter Bruegel the Elder worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

As Engraving; first state of two (sheet: 10 3/16 x 13 in. (25.9 x 33 cm)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The apparent casualness is staged — objects and gestures are arranged to read as a moment caught rather than composed.

Today the painting is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Pieter Bruegel the Elder's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”