QUENTIN METSYS, THE MONEYLENDER AND HIS WIFE (1514)

There’s an ambiguous message in this depiction of an Antwerp moneylender and his wife. Is his wife being lured away from her study of the Virgin and Child by worldly riches? Or does her religious book provide some moral grounding against greed? Whatever the reason, the tiny figure in the red hat – perhaps the artist – that can be spotted in the convex mirror in the painting’s foreground is also reading a book. © Musée du Louvre, Paris, and Thames & Hudson Ltd