The Two Tax Collectors

The Two Tax Collectors in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie extends the genre Metsys created with his moneylender paintings—satirical character studies of financial professionals whose avarice is written in their faces. Dated to around 1530, the year of Metsys’s death, this may be among his last works or a product of his workshop continuing his most popular compositions. The grotesque physiognomies anticipate the satirical tradition that Pieter Bruegel would later develop.

The exaggerated features—bulbous noses, squinting eyes, grasping hands—are rendered with precise detail that grounds the satire in observed reality. The two figures lean together in conspiratorial intimacy, their greed made visible in every physical detail.