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Stultitiam patiuntur opes (Wealth permits Stupidity), or, Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In this pointed visual allegory, a king who personifies wealth counts his money at a table while a jester places a fool’s hat over his head. His female counterpart, distracted by her aged reflection in a mirror, displays her vanity in her luxurious clothing, lap dog, and hangers-on: flattery fans her, and stupidity, with a boar’s head, serves her food and drink. Such allegories were meant to both entertain while cautioning the viewer to question their own relationship to wealth.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineStultitiam patiuntur opes (Wealth permits Stupidity), or, Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity, 1588. Raphael Sadeler (Flemish, 1560/61–1628/32), after Joos Van Winghe (Flemish, 1544–1603). Engraving; image: 29.2 x 35.8 cm (11 1/2 x 14 1/8 in.); sheet: 31.4 x 37.1 cm (12 3/8 x 14 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 2017.199
