The Battle about Money
Pieter van der Heyden
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The unprecedented, and somewhat enigmatic, iconography of this image derives from the fertile imagination of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who executed the original drawing after which this was engraved. Strongboxes, piggy banks, money bags, barrels of coins, and treasure chests—most of them heavily armed with swords, knives, and lances—attack each other in a ferocious display of chaotic, all-out warfare. The Dutch verses inscribed in the lower margin inform us that "It's all for money and goods, this fighting and quarreling." According to the Latin portion of the inscription, the banner with the "savage grappling hook" in the right background exemplifies greed, the vice at the root of all this trouble. The image seems to suggest that humanity's lust for money is responsible for armed conflict. The concerns for the dangers of acquisitiveness and avarice expressed here had deep resonance in Antwerp, the bustling mercantile capital of Northern Europe where Bruegel was active for most of his career. Though inscribed "P. Bruegel" in the lower right corner, the engraving was probably not published until several years after the artist's death in 1569. The accompanying inscription "Aux quatre Vents," referring to the house At the Four Winds, through which many of Bruegel's images were published, is found only on prints issued after 1570.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.