Death and the Miser

Death steps through the door with his arrow as a dying miser, propped up in bed, faces the last choice: an angel turns his eyes toward the small crucifix at the window while a demon, grinning, offers him one more bag of gold. Below, the same man in health still hoards coins into his strongbox, clutching a rosary as a devil helps him count. Bosch illustrates the medieval art of dying, the ars moriendi, in which angels and devils contend for the soul at its final hour. This tall panel was the inner wing of the dismembered triptych whose other fragments - the Ship of Fools and an Allegory of Gluttony - are also in this collection.