Jean-Baptiste Greuze

To the right, a frail old man lies propped up on his deathbed. He is surrounded by relatives and hangers-on who greedily loot the chest at the foot of the bed while a robed official reads the old man’s will. The young man entering from the left is perhaps an estranged son. The narrative details are not completely spelled out, but it is clear that this crowded composition is a portrait of callousness and greed. Jean-Baptiste Greuze was widely admired for his animated genre drawings, which often explored greed, family strife, and piety. One contemporary claimed they could constitute “a complete treatise on domestic morality.”