Hebzucht Possibly 1670 - 1724

Editor: This is Jacob Gole's "Hebzucht," or "Avarice," an etching dating to around 1670-1724. The subject’s got such an…unpleasant smirk. What strikes me most is the cap and the bags; they are so clearly stuffed with coins, signaling wealth, of course, but also this palpable sense of greed. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It's interesting you pick up on the bags and smirk first. Notice how Gole links earthly greed, “Avarice”, with the sacred, “Le Pere Sacristain” — the Father Sacristan, positioned right above. Consider this, though, what do the hat and the overloaded bags *really* represent? Beyond mere monetary value. Editor: Well, the bag and hat do feel…burdened, almost grotesquely so. They seem to weigh him down, right? Curator: Exactly. They’re potent symbols. Consider how this links to similar imagery across time, such as depictions of the biblical Judas or, allegories of vice where overabundance signifies moral corruption. The figure seems trapped *by* his acquisitions. Can you imagine him in the same garments, but the hat and bags *empty*? Editor: It would completely change the message. He’d just be…a priest, maybe a simple man. The emptiness makes him look lighter, morally speaking. Now it’s obvious: the *stuff* is his downfall, quite literally burdening his existence. Curator: Precisely. And doesn't the etching's date itself, in the twilight of the Baroque era, add further symbolic resonance, mirroring an epoch of excess? Editor: I never considered that context. Now it makes so much more sense why Gole would depict a figure so burdened by earthly possessions. It is quite insightful, thinking of it as an iconographic social critique, thanks! Curator: Indeed. The layering of religious imagery with the satirical portrait, and Gole’s attention to such specific objects, turns “Avarice” into a complex visual statement.