Der alte Wucherer

Ribera was a Spaniard who spent his working life in Naples, then ruled by the Spanish crown, and he built his reputation on unflinching close-ups of old age and poverty. This is one of them. An old figure in rags, face creased and distrustful, holds up a small set of scales, the kind used to weigh gold coins. The subject is avarice itself, a moralising type rather than a real sitter, painted in the deep shadow and hard raking light Ribera had absorbed from Caravaggio's example a generation earlier. By 1638 his handling had loosened, and the scales and the worn skin are laid in with quick, rough strokes rather than the tight finish of his youth. He returns again and again in these years to the human face pushed to its limit, every wrinkle and blemish set down without flattery.