The Struggle between Fortune and Poverty (Main View)
Boucicaut Master
The J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, United States
On the left, the personification of Fortune, an elegantly dressed woman with wings, wrestles with the personification of Poverty, a woman raggedly dressed and barefoot. According to the text, Poverty wins this struggle and her victory has a moral message: the renunciation of worldly goods is a virtue that renders fate powerless. Those who voluntarily forsake fame, wealth, and power cannot be affected by a reversal of fortune.
After her triumph over Fortune, Poverty orders that Misfortune, shown partly clothed in the background, be bound to a column. Boccaccio himself appears on the right, dressed as a scholar in a red gown with a hood, echoing the text's mention that he had first heard this story from a professor of astronomy when he was a young student in Naples.
- Title: The Struggle between Fortune and Poverty (Main View)
- Creator: Boucicaut Master
- Date Created: about 1413–1415
- Location Created: Paris, France
- Physical Dimensions: Leaf: 42 × 29.6 cm (16 9/16 × 11 5/8 in.)
- Type: Folio
- External Link: Find out more about this object on the Museum website.
- Medium: Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink on parchment
- Terms of Use: Open Content
- Number: 96.MR.17.63
- Culture: French
- Credit Line: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 63, fol. 63
- Creator Display Name: Boucicaut Master and workshop (French, active about 1390 - 1430)
- Classification: Manuscripts (Documents)
Additional Items
Get the app
Explore museums and play with Art Transfer, Pocket Galleries, Art Selfie, and more
