Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
Pieter Brueghel the Younger(Brussels 1564/65 – 1637/38 Antwerp)

ca. 1592
oil on panel
16.7 x 16.9 cm
signed in dark paint, lower right: “.P.
BRVEGHEL.”
PB-101© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Surh, Dominique. “Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited byArthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

This delightfully amusing painting, previously unpublished, depicts an old Flemish

Comparative Figures

proverb that wealthy men will always have flatterers: “Because so much 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 coinsthat pours out 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. With irony and wit, Brueghelindicates that not even the spiritually elevated are spared from this universal tendency

Fig 1. Infrared photograph of PB-101
showing a detail of the underdrawing(photo: Annette Rupprecht)

to “brownnose,” as a man from a religious order, probably a Franciscan to judge fromhis brown cloak and hood, eagerly crawls into the man’s hole.
This painting is in excellent condition, with only a few retouchings from priorrestorations.[2] Quickly executed in loose, wet paint, the translucency of the multiple
paint layers allows one to appreciate the artist’s assured handling. The contours andfolds of fabrics in highlighted areas of the man’s red shirt and in the dress of thecrawling figures are slightly raised because of the paint’s impasto. As is characteristicof Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s manner of painting, the artist sketched thecomposition directly on the ground and faithfully followed his preparatory drawing in
the final composition (fig 1).[3]A closely related but unsigned version, which includes an inscription of the proverb

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

on its original frame as well as the painting’s date, 1592, differs in quality as well as incompositional details (fig 2).[4] For example, it lacks the branches that extend above© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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the main figure in the Leiden Collection painting, and has a simplified landscape atthe right. The rudimentary forms of the crawling foreground figures and theunconvincing three-dimensionality of the central figure suggest that this work was
painted in Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s workshop and not by the master.[5]Pieter Brueghel the Younger based his composition on a print by Johannes Wierix(1549–ca. 1620), Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers (fig 3), which belongs to aprint series, Twelve Proverbs.[6] The engraving has two inscriptions, one in Dutch thatcircles the image and another in French which appears on the squatting man’s lowerback. Together, they elaborate on the dual nature of flattery. The Dutch text addresses
the great advantage of rich men who use their wealth to get ahead yet lose sight ofFig 3. Johannes Wierix, Man with theMoneybag and His Flatterers, 1568,engraving, 17.8 cm diameter,
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, ©
Ashmolean Museum, University ofOxford

their own inclination to “crawl into the hole.” The French text speaks of the desire
to “enter the hole” of the rich person who is willing to give.[7]Despite the close correlation between the Leiden Collection painting and Wierix’s
print, Brueghel did make subtle adjustments to his composition. Instead of depicting
the man’s left hand distributing coins, he eliminated the hand and depicted the coins
as streaming out of the moneybag. He also altered the shape of the bottom of themoneybag, and added a house and tree to the distant landscape.
The designs for Wierix’s engraved series Twelve Proverbs have sometimes been
incorrectly attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s father, Pieter Bruegel theElder (ca. 1525–69), since the latter’s Twelve Flemish Proverbs in the Museum Mayervan den Bergh in Antwerp are closely related in concept.[8] Nevertheless, Wierix’s[9]

proverbs belong to a different pictorial tradition.

As is evident in Pieter Brueghelthe Younger’s paintings, Wierix’s print of the flatterer was very popular. It is also seenFig 4. Jan Theodor de Bry, afterJohannes Wierix, Man with the Money
Bag and His Flatterers, engraving, 10.7
x 8.4 cm, National Gallery of Art,
Washington D.C.

in a print by Jan Theodor de Bry (1528–96) executed late in the sixteenth century (fig4).[10] Such examples, and the different series of proverbs that survive from theperiod, underscore the popularity of a genre that humorously mocks human behavior.

- Dominique Surh, 2017; revised 2022

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Man with the Moneybag and Flatterers
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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 other known versionof this composition: “Om dat door mynen sack veel gelts comt geslopen daer om worde ick van al deweerelt int gat ghecropen 1592” (Because a lot of money creeps into my money bag, the whole worldclimbs 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 theElder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with a Special Focus on Technique and 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, frequentlyworking on the basis of graphic designs and often creating his paintings from drawings or prints. An
underdrawing was found at 780 nm; see Annette Rupprecht, “Technical notes of A Proverb: He whoholds the sack of gold will always have flatterers by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, PB-101” unpublishedreport 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 most recently appeared at auction in2001. 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; and Klaus Ertz, Pieter Brueghel der Jüngere, die Gemälde mit kritischem
Oeuvrekatalog, 2 vols. (Luca, 2000), 113–14, ft. 58, F 69, 199.
5. Christina Currie and Dominique Allart, The Brueg(h)el Phenomenon: Paintings by Pieter Bruegel theElder and Pieter Brueghel the Younger, with a Special Focus on Technique and Copying Practice, 3 vols.
(Brussels, 2012).
6. The engraving has been previously attributed to Hieronymus Wierix, see Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein,
Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700, vol. 3, Boekhorst–Brueghel(Amsterdam, 1955), no. 169.
7. Around the outside of the print the Flemish inscription reads: “Die ghelt te gheuen heft onder hooghe enslechte, / En dat hij wat milt laet van sijnen schat, druijpen, Hy crijcht Offitien en 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 shall crawl into the hole). On the lower back of the squatting man, twolines read in French: “On ne sait comme entrer on veut, / Au trou de cil qui donner peut” (One does notknow 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.
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8. The illustration shows a man holding a large piece of fabric fluttering in the air, while the inscription
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” (A flatterer am I and so inclined / as thewind blows so blow I). Manfred Sellink, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings, Drawings and Prints (NewYork, 2007), 123.
9. See discussion in David Freedberg, The Prints of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Tokyo, 1989), 171, no. 66;
Mandred Sellink, Bruegel: The Complete Paintings, Drawings and Prints (New York, 2007), 124.
10. The underlying inscription on this print reads: “Tu caligas inflare meas, ego cudere nummos” (Youinflate 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 History
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye for Detail: Dutch Painting fromthe Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [lent by the present owner].

References
Kapust, Daniel J. Flattery and the History of Political Thought: That Glib and Oily Art. Cambridge, 2018,
cover illustration.

Versions
Related Prints
1. Johannes Wierix (1549–ca. 1620), “The Man with the Moneybag and His Flatterers,” 1568, engraving,
17.8 cm diameter, National Gallery, Stuttgart, Print Collection, inv. no. A 17425.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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2. Jan Theodor de Bry (1528–96), after Johannes Wierix, “The Man with the Moneybag and His
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 haveflatterers,” oil on panel, oval, 18.2 cm diameter, current whereabouts unknown; formerly sale, Sotheby’s,London, 12 July 2001, no. 118.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of circular, horizontally grained oak, is unthinned and uncradled and has acontinuous round bevel along the panel circumference.[1] Hand-marbled paper adhered to the entire panel
reverse makes it impossible to determine whether there are import stamps, panel maker’s marks, or toolmarks. No lead wax seal is visible in the X-radiograph or under the paper 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 thin layers oftransparent glazing, light over dark, with virtually no brushmarkings. The contours and folds 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 faceand 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 ininfrared 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

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.
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© 2024 The Leiden Collection