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Audio Stop 602

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A naked man with ghostly white skin sits upright in a canopied bed set in a narrow room in this tall, vertical painting. Wearing a black cap, he looks to our left in profile toward a skeleton who comes through a door along the left edge of the composition. The man gestures at the skeleton with one hand and, with the other, toward a bag of money held up by a small demon next to the bed to our left. The skeleton wears a white shroud and holds an arrow. A winged angel kneels next to the man in the bed, one hand on the man’s shoulder and the other lifted to gesture at a crucifix hanging in the window over the door. A small devil on the canopy above looks down onto the bed. At the foot of the bed, a man wearing a green robe and headdress drops coins into a sack held by another demon. Three more demons crawl about and hide under the chest. Pieces of armor and weapons lie on the ground to the right in front of a stone ledge in the foreground. Two pieces of clothing drape over the ledge to our left.

Hieronymus Bosch

Death and the Miser, c. 1485/1490

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 41

Read full audio transcript

HIERONYMUS BOSCH, DEATH AND THE MISER

[sound effects: door creaking open, coins clanking, slithering noises.]

FEMALE NARRATOR

         What a creepy scene! A man sits in bed. He has many visitors, some slithering and scurrying about! Look for the green-brown demon holding a fiery lantern, who peers down from the top of the bed, a creature wearing a black hood with white wings, crouched near a low wall, two grey critters scurrying under a chest, a rat-faced beast inside the chest, holding a bag of gold, an old man who drops a few coins in.

 

         There’s a second moneybag in this scene. Do you see it? A little monster peeps out from under the bed-curtains and tempts the man in bed with a bag of gold. But he isn’t the only one trying to get the man’s attention. An angel is trying to get the man to look up and notice a crucifix in the window.

         But something else entirely has caught his attention – the skeleton entering the room, an arrow in its hand. What’s going to happen next? 

      This painting is called Death and the Miser. The skeleton represents Death and the man is the Miser. He’s on his deathbed.

 

         This painting has a moral: it’s a warning against greed. The miser has a choice between the moneybag offered by the little monster and the pleas of the angel. Do you think the man will choose good or evil before he dies?

      This painting was made in the 15th century by an artist called Hieronymus Bosch. It was painted on wood panel. Look at its long, narrow shape. It may have been one panel of a huge painting that decorated an altar. The other panels – now  missing – would have told more of the story.

Kids West Building Tour