Death and the Miser was a popular composition, for around ten autograph versions with varying degree of detail and delicacy have survived, yet a prototype has not been identified. Executed with highly refined and impastoed brushstrokes on the largest known sheet of copper, this version, as Dr. Härting notes, is one of the earliest. The elaborate six-branched chandelier in the backroom, typical of the Southern Netherlands (Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp, MPM.V.II.07.045), is unrepeated in the other versions. Another exceptional feature is the circular convex mirror under the vaulted ceiling, where in all other known versions a roundel with a landscape view hang. The reflection shows the Miser’s red beret and Death’s skull reflected from behind, the lattice window to the left, as well as a hint of a brass chandelier or possibly the artist himself.

The convex mirror is perhaps a fascinating quotation from the 1514 Moneylender and His Wife by Quentin Metsys (Musée du Louvre, Paris, INV 1444), an iconic critique of mercantile greed. Francken could well have had access to this painting as he had worked in the 1620s for its owner at the time, Cornelis van der Geest (1555–1638), on an altarpiece in Lier alongside Willem van Haecht, the painter and resident keeper of the van der Geest collection. The prominent Antwerp spice merchant and maecenas had an extensive art collection, famously depicted in van Haecht’s kunstkamer painting of 1628 and a few other kunstkamer pictures featuring both imaginary and real art treasures that the painter saw, such as Apelles Painting Campaspe (Mauritshuis, The Hague, 266), in which the Moneylender is positioned prominently in the foreground. Indeed, soon after Francken invented the genre of art gallery interiors around 1610, it was taken up and brought to new heights by Willem van Haecht, Jan Brueghel the Younger, and David Teniers the Younger. Densely packed with paintings, sculptures, musical and scientific instruments, shells and specimens, these rooms depict both imaginary and existing art collections, often with identifiable artworks (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Gemäldegalerie, 1048).

Many of Francken’s best paintings were collaborations with landscape or architecture specialists, such as Pieter Neeffs the Elder (ca. 1578-1656/61) and Hendrik van Steenwyck II (ca. 1580-1649). In Härting’s view, the checkerboard floor and the enclosed backroom – both distinctive features of the present version – were painted during Francken’s lifetime after the main figural groups, perhaps at the request of a patron who wanted a more lavish interior.