탐욕

This face was never meant to be seen on its own. Durer painted it in 1507 on the back of a portrait of a young man, so the two hung as a pair, youth on one side and this on the other. An old woman leans forward, bare-shouldered, clutching a bag of coins, her mouth twisted open to show the two teeth she has left. Durer worked the flesh in thick, rough paint, nothing flattering about it. She is not a real person but a warning, avarice and the ruin of age tied together, the kind of image people of that time grouped with his famous engraving Melencolia. The money she grips so hard is the very thing shown to be worthless. It is a small panel, about the size of a sheet of paper. Turn it over in your mind and the handsome young man is there on the other side, not yet grown into this.