Le Prêteur et sa femme

Antwerp in 1514 was becoming the money capital of northern Europe. Ships from Portugal and the Baltic met in its harbour, and with them came a swarm of money-changers and lenders to weigh the foreign coin and settle the debts. Metsys painted one of those men here, at his table, tipping gold and pearls onto a small balance while his wife sits beside him. She has a prayer book open to an image of the Virgin and Child, but her eyes have drifted from the page to the glinting scales. That small tug of attention is the whole subject. Look at the round mirror in the foreground: its curved surface catches a window, a rooftop, and a tiny figure in a red hat reading by the light. It pulls the street outside into this quiet counting room. There was once a frame carrying a line from Leviticus about honest weights and measures, so a viewer in 1514 read the couple as a warning about where a soul's attention should sit.