Empire Triumphant over Avarice

Adriaen de Vries

National Gallery of Art

Cast in bronze, one woman stands over a second crouching woman in this free-standing sculpture. Both women are nude, muscular, and have long wavy hair pulled back under bands. The golden-brown surface of the bronze is highly polished and smooth. In this photograph, the standing woman’s body faces us. Representing Empire, her head is encircled with a ring of laurel leaves, and she lifts her left hand, to our right, high overhead to hold up a second crown of leaves. She looks down onto the second woman, representing Avarice, and presses her hand into the Avarice’s shoulder, pushing the latter down. Empire balances on one foot and presses the other into Avarice’s hips, also destabilizing the latter’s stance. Avarice falls back onto one hand, which grips a purse on the ground. Avarice looks up at Empire with her mouth open and her left arm, farther from us, raised. Coins spill out on the square base, which is just big enough for Empire’s planted foot, the purse, and Avarice’s unstable feet.