'The Tax Collector's Office,' by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

'The Tax Collector's Office,' by Pieter Brueghel the Younger: People's lives, livings and the full extent of their possessions are weighed in the balance and disposed of by smug, well-fed, self-serving scum -- owners and owned like tossed aside just like so much refuse. 

Story of the painting itself from the South Australian Gallery, where the painting now resides:

The Tax-Collector's Office is one of approximately forty copies by the artist of a lost painting by his much more famous father, Pieter Brueghel the elder. It shows a group of poor Flemish villagers waiting patiently to submit their taxes not in cash but in baskets of eggs, poultry, game and other produce. A prosperously-dressed tax-collector, assisted by a staff of half-witted clerks, is shown peering at a parchment behind a counter laden with piles of documents and money-bags. The artist mocks the wastefulness of this hive of bumbling officials by showing mountainous bundles of cancelled bills and receipts spilling carelessly across the office floor.

Death and taxes? How about death, desolation, wastefulness and tax collectors. Funny how the four seem to fit together.

[Image from Wikipedia Commons]
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