The Battle of the Moneybags and the Strongboxes

Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder

National Gallery of Art

Printed with fine black lines and hatching, creatures made of fabric sacks with human heads, arms, and legs and wooden chests and barrels with limbs are all dressed in armor and battle in this horizontal engraving. Spears, lances, and swords pierce bags and chests alike, and coins spill out of many of them. The characters are crowded as they fight in front of a couple of puffs of smoke in the background to the right and a sea of upright spears to the left. The fighting is confused, with severed limbs lying about and one soldier fighting with a dagger slicing his helmet. A printed signature in the lower right corner reads, P. Bruegel Inuet, Ioan Galle excudit.” An inscription in the bottom center of the image reads, “DIVITLAE FACIVNT FVRES. Multos perdidit aurem et argenium, Eccli 8.5. LES RICHESSES FONT DES LARRONS. L'or et l'argent en a destruit plusieurs. RYCKDOM MAECKT DIEVEN./ Goudt en silver heeft vek bedrove.” Text in three columns under the image reads, “Quid modo diuitie, quid fului vasta metalli Congeries, nummis arca referta nouis, Illecebres inter tantas, atq agmina furum, Inditium cunctis efferus vncus erit, Preda facit furem, feruens mala cuncta ministrat, Impetus, et spolijs apta rapina feris. Wel aen ghij Spaerpotten, Tonnen, en Kisten. Tis al om gelt en goet, dit striden en twisten. Al seet men u ooc anders, willet niet ghelouen. Daerom vueren wij den haec die ons noijt en miste. Men soeckt wel actie om ons te uerdoouen, Maer men souwer niet krijgen, waerder niet te rooven.”