Ill-Matched Marriage(The Marriage Contract)

Context and iconography

Many artists depicted the theme of marriage between people of differing age. Goya, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Lucas Cranach the Elder dedicated works and studies to this subject. The representation of an old man marrying a younger woman is more common, but here Matsys depicts the opposite: a rich old woman marries a young man. Matsys made another version with the man older, now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Being caressed by the young man, the old woman offers him a wedding ring with her right hand and opens her bag, smoothed by the man's left hand. The mockery, hypocrisy and foolishness of the scene is highlighted by the burlesque features of the characters and, in particular, by the figure at right, shown putting the necklace spread on the table inside a box.

The "grotesque marriage" is also present in the satirical literature, as in the poem Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant (1494), which in its 52nd chapter tackles the "marriage-for-money" theme. The subject is treated by Erasmus of Rotterdam in his The Praise of Folly (1509).