Triumph of Poverty
by VORSTERMAN, Lucas, Pen in brown, with gray and brown wash, black and red chalks, and white highlights, 43,7 x 58,5 cm
Hope (Spes) steers the straw-covered wagon of poverty (Penia); two donkeys, Stupidity (Stupiditas) and Laziness (Ignavia) and two oxen - Negligence (Negligentia) and Sloth (Pigritia) - pull it. Moderation (Moderatio), Diligence (Diligentia), Carefulness (Soliticitudo), and Labour (Labor) lead the horses and drive them. Like Wealth, poverty is also accompanied by good and evil forces: Industriousness (Industria), which hands out tools to the retinue, sits together with Experience (Usus), and Memory (Memoria) on the cart; behind Poverty, Misfortune (Infortunium) hands out thrashings. The text on the panel hanging from the tree ponders the vicissitudes of fate and the nature of wealth and poverty. Whereas the rich man should spend his life in delusion, in perpetual fear of a stroke of misfortune, the poor man should fear nothing and learn with industrious virtuousness to serve God.