Man withFlatterers

theMoneybag

Pieter Brueghel the Younger(Brussels 1564/65 – 1637/38 Antwerp)

andca. 1592
oil on panel
16.7 x 16.9 cm
signed in dark paint, lower right: “.P.
BRVEGHEL.”
PB-101© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
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How To Cite
Surh, Dominique. "Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
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This delightfully amusing painting, previously unpublished, depicts an old

Comparative Figures

Flemish proverb that wealthy men will always have flatterers: “Because somuch money creeps into my sack, the whole world climbs into my hole.”[1]This saying recalls modern day descriptions of flatterers as “brownnosers”or “ass-kissers,” terms that no doubt descend from the vivid pictorial
tradition of illustrations such as this. Here, Pieter Brueghel the Younger
depicts a disproportionately large man holding a sack of coins that poursout from under his arm. Nude from the waist down, he squats near a tree
as though defecating. In the foreground, a number of smaller figures crawl
behind him and enter into the cavernous opening of his rear end. WithFig 1. Infrared photograph ofPB-101 showing a detail of theunderdrawing (photo: AnnetteRupprecht)

irony and wit, Brueghel indicates that not even the spiritually elevated arespared from this universal tendency to “brownnose,” as a man from areligious order, probably a Franciscan to judge from his brown cloak andhood, eagerly crawls into the man’s hole.
This painting is in excellent condition, with only a few retouchings fromprior restorations.[2] Quickly executed in loose, wet paint, the translucencyof the multiple paint layers allows one to appreciate the artist’s assured
handling. The contours and folds of fabrics in highlighted areas of theman’s red shirt and in the dress of the crawling figures are slightly raised
because of the paint’s impasto. As is characteristic of Pieter Brueghel theYounger’s manner of painting, the artist sketched the composition directlyon the ground and faithfully followed his preparatory drawing in the final

Fig 2. Pieter Brueghel theYounger, A Proverb: He whoholds the sack of gold will always
have flatterers, oil on panel, 18.2
cm diameter, whereabouts
unknown (formerly, sale,Sotheby’s, London, 12 July 2001,no. 118)

composition (fig 1).[3]A closely related but unsigned version, which includes an inscription of theproverb on its original frame as well as the painting’s date, 1592, differs inquality as well as in compositional details (fig 2).[4] For example, it lacks
the branches that extend above the main figure in the Leiden Collection
painting, and has a simplified landscape at the right. The rudimentary
forms of the crawling foreground figures and the unconvincing threedimensionality of the central figure suggest that this work was painted in
Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s workshop and not by the master.[5]Fig 3. Hieronymus Wiericx, Manwith the Moneybag and His
Flatterers, ca. 1558, engraving,
17.8 cm diameter, Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, © Ashmolean
Museum, University of Oxford

Pieter Brueghel the Younger based his composition on a print by
Hieronymous Wiericx (1553–1619), Man with the Moneybag andFlatterers (fig 3), which belongs to a print series, Twelve Proverbs.[6] The
engraving has two inscriptions, one in Dutch that circles the image andanother in French which appears on the squatting man’s lower back.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
Page 4 of 8Together, they elaborate on the dual nature of flattery. The Dutch text
addresses the great advantage of rich men who use their wealth to getahead yet lose sight of their own inclination to “crawl into the hole.” The
French text speaks of the desire to “enter the hole” of the rich person whois willing to give.[7]Despite the close correlation between the Leiden Collection painting andWiericx’s print, Brueghel did make subtle adjustments to his composition.
Instead of depicting the man’s left hand distributing coins, he eliminatedthe hand and depicted the coins as streaming out of the moneybag. He
also altered the shape of the bottom of the moneybag, and added a houseand tree to the distant landscape.

Fig 4. Jan Theodor de Bry, after
Hieronymus Wiericx, Man with theMoney Bag and His Flatterers,engraving, 10.7 x 8.4 cm, National
Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The designs for Wiericx’s engraved series Twelve Proverbs havesometimes been incorrectly attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger’sfather, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1525–69), since the latter’s Twelve
Flemish Proverbs in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp areclosely related in concept.[8] Nevertheless, Wiericx’s proverbs belong to adifferent pictorial tradition. As is evident in Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s
paintings, Wiericx’s print of the flatterer was very popular. It is also seen ina print by Jan Theodor de Bry (1528–96) executed late in the sixteenth
century (fig 4).[9] Such examples, and the different series of proverbs thatsurvive from the period, underscore the popularity of a genre that
humorously mocks human behavior.
-Dominique Surh© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. “Om dat door mynen sack veel gelts comt geslopen daer om worde ick van al de weerelt int
gat ghecropen.” The proverb is derived from text that survives on the frame of the only otherknown version of this composition: “Om dat door mynen sack veel gelts comt geslopen daerom worde ick van al de weerelt int gat ghecropen 1592” (Because a lot of money creeps into
my money bag, the whole world climbs into my hole 1592). Trans. Ilona van Tuinen. See also
note 4, this entry.
2. The painting was last cleaned by Nancy Krieg in 2009.
3. Christina Currie and Dominique Allart, The Brueg(h)el Phenomenon: Paintings by Pieter
Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with a Special Focus on Techniqueand Copying Practice, 3 vols. (Brussels, 2012). Currie and Allart’s study of the painting
technique of Pieter Brueghel the Younger has shed light on how the artist went about making
numerous copies of the same composition, frequently working on the basis of graphic
designs and often creating his paintings from drawings or prints. An underdrawing wasfound at 780 nm; see Annette Rupprecht, “Technical notes ofA Proverb: He who holds thesack of gold will always have flatterers by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, PB-101”
unpublished report dated January 2013, curatorial files, The Leiden Collection, New York.
4. This version is larger in diameter than the present painting by 2 centimeters and its current
whereabouts are unknown. The provenance stretches back to 1934, and the work mostrecently appeared at auction in 2001. For its historical assessment, see Gustav Glück,
Brueghels Gemälde (Vienna, 1932), fig. 98; Georges Marlier, Pierre Brueghel Le Jeune,posthumously edited and annotated by Jacqueline Folie (Brussels, 1969), 150, no. 7; andKlaus

Ertz,

PieterBrueghelderJüngere,

dieGemälde

mitkritischem

Oeuvrekatalog (Freren, 1988/2000), 113–14, ft. 58, F 69, 199.
5. Christina Currie and Dominique Allart, The Brueg(h)el Phenomenon: Paintings by Pieter
Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with a Special Focus on Techniqueand Copying Practice, 3 vols. (Brussels, 2012).
6. The engraving by Heironymous Wiericx is attributed alternatively to Johannes or JanWiericx, see F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca.
1450–1700, vol. 3, Boekhorst–Brueghel (Amsterdam, 1955), no. 169; René van Bastelaer,
The Prints of Peter Bruegel the Elder: Catalogue Raisonné (San Francisco, 1992), 288, no.
169; and Nadine Orenstein, The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings
and Woodcuts, 1450–1700: Pieter Brueghel the Elder , ed. Manfred Sellink (Amsterdam,2006), 166, A8.
7. Around the outside of the print the Flemish inscription reads: “Die ghelt te gheuen heft onder
hooghe en slechte, / En dat hij wat milt laet van sijnen schat, druijpen, Hy crijcht Offitien en© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
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comt t’synen rechte, / Want elck en weet niet hoe hem sal in t’gat crujpen” (He who has
money to give among high and low, / And that he liberally lets drop from his treasure, He
receives offices and comes into his rights,/ Because not everyone is aware that he too shallcrawl into the hole). On the lower back of the squatting man, two lines read in French: “Onne sait comme entrer on veut, / Au trou de cil qui donner peut” (One does not know how one
wants to enter / The hole of he who can give). René van Bastelaer, The Prints of Peter
Bruegel the Elder: Catalogue Raisonné (San Francisco, 1992), 288, no. 169.
8. The illustration shows a man holding a large piece of fabric fluttering in the air, while theinscription describes the flatterer as a person who changes direction depending on the wind.
“Een placebo ben ick ende also gesint / dat ick de huyck alom hanch naeden wint” (Aflatterer am I and so inclined / as the wind blows so blow I). M. Sellink,Bruegel: The
Complete Paintings, Drawings and Prints (New York, 2007), 123.
9. The underlying inscription on this print reads: “Tu caligas inflare meas, ego cudere nummos”(You inflate my britches, I strike coins); see René van Bastelaer,The Prints of Peter Bruegel
the Elder: Catalogue Raisonné (San Francisco, 1992), 229, no. 170.

Provenance(Sale, Piasa, Drouot Richelieu, Paris, 17 December 2008, no. 37 [Salomon Lilian B. V.,Amsterdam]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

Exhibition HistoryIthaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye for Detail: Dutch
Painting from the Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [lent by the presentowner].

Versions
Related Prints© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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1. Hieronymus Wiericx, “The Man with the Moneybag and His Flatterers,” ca. 1558, engraving,
17.8 cm diameter, National Gallery, Stuttgart, Print Collection, inv. no. A 17425.

2. Jan Theodor de Bry (1528–96), after Hieronymus Wiericx, “The Man with the Moneybag andHis Flatterers,” engraving, 10.7 x 8.4 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald
Collection, inv. no. 1964.8.410. Published in Jan Theodor de Bry, Emblemata Secularia[Oppenheim, 1611]).

Versions & Copies
1. Circle of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, A Proverb: “He who holds the sack of gold will
always have flatterers,” oil on panel, oval, 18.2 cm diameter, current whereabouts unknown;
formerly sale, Sotheby’s, London, 12 July 2001, no. 118.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of circular, horizontally grained oak, is unthinned and uncradled andhas a continuous round bevel along the panel circumference.[1] Hand-marbled paper adhered tothe entire panel reverse makes it impossible to determine whether there are import stamps,
panel maker’s marks, or tool marks. No lead wax seal is visible in the X-radiograph or under thepaper in raking light, there are no wooden shims, and the panel has not been previously
prepared for dendrochronology.
A light-colored, thinly and evenly applied ground is topped by paint applied in successive thinlayers of transparent glazing, light over dark, with virtually no brushmarkings. The contours andfolds of the central figure’s vermilion shirt, the coins spilling from the sack, the miniature figures
crawling along the foreground, and the foliage along the upper left of the composition are visible
and slightly raised. The paint and ground do not spill over onto the thickness of the panel edges,
but form a jagged edge along the entire outer panel circumference.
A detailed, freely drawn line underdrawing is visible through the paint layer along the central
figure’s face and along the folds where the figure’s stomach meets his upper thigh. Additional
areas of underdrawing are visible through the figure’s vermillion shirt and the miniature figures
crawling along the foreground in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.[2]The painting has been signed in dark paint along the foreground in the lower right.
The painting underwent minor conservation treatment in 2009.

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only.
2. An infrared composite using an InGaS camera, which reaches further into the infrared
spectrum, could provide additional details.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection