Can You Tell Right from Wrong in These Drawings?
17th-century Dutch and Flemish artists took the call to instruct—and amuse—seriously
Amorous Couple, about 1621, Jacob Matham. Pen and brown ink with red chalk and brown wash, with touches of red opaque watercolor, heightened with white opaque watercolor, over graphite, incised for transfer, on laid paper. Getty Museum
Jacob Matham made this suggestive drawing of an amorous couple in preparation for a print that warns against excessive alcohol consumption.
Editor’s Note
Stephanie Schrader is a curator in the Department of Drawings at the Getty Museum.
Body Content
When you peruse news websites and social media, you probably scroll through lots of disapproving headlines about public figures’ bad behavior, as well as proud displays of moral righteousness, often mocked as virtue signaling. People today tend to receive messages about the good and bad in the world through digital means, but how were people in the past instructed to behave, when societal values couldn’t be espoused at the touch of a button?
The exhibition Virtue and Vice: Allegory in European Drawing invites visitors to the Getty Museum to consider how art from the 16th to the 19th centuries served a moral purpose. Artists looked to biblical texts, classical history, mythology, and the world around them for examples of both sinful and virtuous behavior, embracing their fertile imaginations and remarkable talents to design compositions that moved viewers emotionally and compelled good behavior.
To guide interpretation, artists provided visual clues in their depictions to help differentiate between good and bad conduct. Sometimes the messages were clear, but in other instances they were more challenging to decipher. To conceive of moralizing paintings, prints, and sculpture, artists typically sketched their ideas first. Beyond their inventive use of line and color, drawings played a key role in shaping and communicating moral instruction. This exhibition offers a view into artists’ visual thinking and creative production.
Seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish artists took the call to instruct seriously, especially when it came to depicting bad behavior. Their scenes of everyday life offered such a detailed array of sin, one wonders if artists instructed viewers to behave badly instead of warning against such vice. Theologians, scholars, and artists from the 1600s understood that the more human a moralizing message appeared, the greater didactic value it had. For the Dutch and Flemish, puzzling out the good from the bad and making a choice for oneself about how to respond was essential.
Discover how to “decode” the moral lesson in these four drawings on display.
Animals occupy a kitchen cellar to suggest a world turned upside down
An Enchanted Cellar with Animals, about 1655–70, Cornelis Saftleven. Black and red chalk, brush with gray and brown wash, and watercolor. Getty Museum
Cornelis Saftleven (Dutch, 1607–1681) specialized in animal satires, and his Enchanted Cellar with Animals offers a meticulously detailed depiction of a world turned upside down. A shocked male figure (center) peers out from behind a curtain to witness animals running amok in a kitchen. In this comedic scene, nothing but chaos gets made. A hen and rooster (upper left) stand idle while three mice (right) warm themselves by the fire. A chained primate (center right), after ostensibly creating the mess of broken utensils at his feet, sneers at the viewer with satisfaction. Meanwhile, another monkey (center left), who conducts with a feather, futilely attempts to persuade a parliament of disinterested owls to sing.
In this satirical image, Saftleven calls for the restoration of order, using humor to make the moral medicine go down.
Spending money foolishly on wine and women serves as a warning to the rich and powerful
A Merry Company, about 1644, Jacob Jordaens. Watercolor over charcoal, heightened with white opaque watercolor. Getty Museum
Jacob Jordaens (Flemish, 1593–1678) frequently depicted colorful, boisterous scenes that provided cheeky commentary on bad behavior. A Merry Company, a preparatory drawing for a luxurious tapestry, illustrates an ancient proverb—ill-gotten, ill-spent—that was popularized by 17th-century authors of didactic verse. The artist relished in portraying what happens when men, who acquired money through dishonest means, subsequently waste their coin. A vomiting figure overturning a table, a jumping dog, and a brazenly groping suitor are all indications that this party is out of control.
When making this preparatory drawing, Jordaens considered how the large tapestry would ultimately adorn a grand dining room and encourage a wealthy patron to behave better than those who squander their money.
How should we repay kindness, with gratitude or ingratitude?
Design for the central section of The Mirror of Virtue, about 1594, Cornelis Ketel. Pen and dark-brown ink with brush and brown wash over black chalk, heightened with white opaque watercolor. Getty Museum
Trained as a poet and painter, Cornelis Ketel (Dutch, 1548–1616) made this intricate drawing as a preliminary design for an allegorical print. Celebrated in the early 17th century as The Mirror of Virtue, the composition shows an elegantly posed female nude, a personification of charity, bestowing a gift of the blazing sun on a male figure and the crescent moon on a female figure. The man, a personification of ingratitude, repays Charity by biting her right arm and stabbing her left flank with a dagger. The feuding snakes encircling his right leg, and the coffin and skull at his feet, make clear that his cruel disregard of kindness is no less terrible than death. The kneeling woman, a personification of gratitude, receives her gift with humility. The obelisk behind her signifies her thankfulness as eternal. At Charity’s feet are a lion, dog, and tiny mouse attempting to chew through the rope around the lion. The animals evoke ancient fables that tell moral stories about reciprocal kindness and eternal gratitude.
In his exploration of human nature, Ketel asks viewers to examine themselves to determine where they fall on the spectrum of good and bad behavior.
A grotesque frog hoards a pile of coins to convey the ugliness of greed
Allegory of Avarice, about 1609, Jacques de Gheyn II. Pen and brown ink. Getty Museum
Jacques de Gheyn II (Dutch, 1565–1629) transformed a naturalistic study of a frog into a fantastical allegory about greed. The amphibian uses its front right foot to indecorously shove coins between its back legs. The sphere-like globe the frog controls with its front left foot suggests that greed has become universal.
Drawn centuries ago, de Gheyn’s grotesque animal imparts a timeless message. With its raised head and prominent beady eye, it turns to look out at the viewer, daring us to consider our own actions. Are we going to hoard our money like this grasping creature or follow a more virtuous path?
Want to discover more ways artists conveyed proper and improper behavior to help discourage the viewer from going down the immoral path? Visit Virtue and Vice: Allegory in European Drawing through June 7, 2026, at the Getty Center for more compelling examples of moralizing messages hidden in works of art.
