Envy (Invidia) from The Seven Deadly Sins

Description

Envy, or Invidia, gives a destructive human emotion an unsettling landscape of its own. A central allegorical woman is surrounded by strange creatures, distorted figures and densely packed structures. The engraving was made by Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1558, as part of The Seven Deadly Sins. Its crowded imagery makes the vice feel pervasive, spreading beyond a single person into the world around her.

The precise engraved line lends remarkable clarity to this disorder. Small incidents compete for attention, and each change of scale or unexpected creature interrupts any easy reading of the scene. The caption below frames the image as a moral subject, while the surrounding inventions keep it visually unpredictable. Envy emerges through an accumulation of disturbing encounters rather than a simple illustration of one recognizable feeling.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Pieter Bruegel collection.