Provenance
Private collection, England, possibly in or near Arundel, Sussex, around 1826.[1] (unnamed dealer, Highgate Village, London), c. 1926.[2] (Raven, Massey, and Lester, London), by 1926. (Asscher and Welker, London), by 1931.[3] Baron Joseph van der Elst, Brussels, Biot, France, and numerous diplomatic posts, by 1932 or slightly later; sold 1951 though (Messrs. E.D. Lowy and Franz Mayer) to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.
[1] This may be deduced from a drawing after the painting. Mr. E. Kersley, in a letter of 17 June 1961 to John Walker in the NGA curatorial files, places the drawing in or near Arundel based on its original position in a sketchbook of primarily topographical scenes. Attributed to the English artist William Henry Brooke (1772-1860), this drawing is now in the National Gallery of Art (1983.48.1).
[2] J. Massey, London, letter of 21 July 1961 to Perry Cott, in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Letters, 30 September and 3 October 1931, Asscher and Welker to Jean Guiffrey, Director, Musée du Louvre, Paris, in NGA curatorial files (transferred from René Huyghe material in NGA Photographic Archives); the painting was then in Asscher and Welker's possession and they were offering it for sale to the Louvre. The second letter informed Guiffrey that the painting was "out of a small unknown collection, and as such has no pedigree." See also Gustav Glück, _Brueghels Gemälde_ (Vienna, 1932), 57.
[4] A letter from William Suida to the Baron of 25 October 1951 in the Kress files requests the Baron's written confirmation that he once owned the painting, and that he sold it through an agent to the Kress Foundation: "The Foundation bought the painting through Messrs. [E.D.] Loewy and [Franz] Mayer. It is well-known that the painting was formerly in your collection but we have no record of the fact in our file concerning it." Although the file contains no reply to Suida's letter, it does contain the old painting label which reads, "...KRESS COLLECTION/ ACQUIRED MARCH 17, 1951/FROM THE VAN DER ELST COLLECTION". See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/648.
Accession Number
1952.5.33
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 93 × 31 cm (36 5/8 × 12 3/16 in.) | framed: 107.95 × 46.04 × 9.53 cm (42 1/2 × 18 1/8 × 3 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Renaissance (1400–1599) Oil Painting Panel Painting Netherlandish
Background & Context
Background Story
Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) was a Netherlandish painter known for his fantastical and moralizing subject matter—visions of hell, temptation, and the vices of humanity rendered with an imagination so extraordinary that no painter before or since has matched it. Death and the Miser from c. 1485-90 depicts a dying miser being tempted by demons and visited by death in the moralizing, fantastical manner that distinguishes Bosch's best work. The painting shows a man on his deathbed, with a demon offering him a bag of gold while death approaches with an arrow, and an angel urging him toward salvation—the classic moral conflict between worldly greed and spiritual salvation that is central to Bosch's moralizing vision.
Cultural Impact
Death and the Miser is important in the history of Netherlandish painting because it demonstrates the moralizing, fantastical manner that makes Bosch one of the most original painters in Western art. The dying miser tempted by demons and visited by death is the central moral conflict of Bosch's art—the conflict between worldly greed and spiritual salvation—and the painting shows this conflict rendered with the fantastical imagination that makes Bosch's moralizing vision so compelling.
Why It Matters
Death and the Miser is Bosch's moralizing imagination at its most direct: a dying miser tempted by demons offering gold while death approaches with an arrow and an angel urges salvation. The c. 1485-90 painting shows the central moral conflict of Bosch's art—worldly greed versus spiritual salvation—rendered with the fantastical imagination that makes him one of the most original painters in Western art.
