Step into Bruegel's time with today's gaze. See how evil was depicted between 1450 and 1650 and discover how the moral dilemmas of the time are still relevant today.

Exhibition overview Truly Wicked: The Seven Deadly Sins visualised, Bonnefanten, 2024. Photo Peter Cox.

Over 80 (international) masterpieces have been brought together around Bruegel's famous print series The Seven Deadly Sins. A large number of artworks have never been on public display before.

Pieter Dell manages in a masterful way to capture a sinful act in a figure, making this the attribute of the personification. Blending personification and behaviour is something that Pieter Bruegel the Elder did in his own way, in his prints.

Peter Dell, Allegories on The Seven Deadly Sins, ca. 1535-1540, pearwood, partly gilded, 272 x 91 x 69 – 282 x 100 x 69 mm. Collection Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Neurenberg, inv. nr. Pl.O.768 – inv. nr. PI.O.773. Photo M. Runge Best.

Pieter Brueghel II (workshop), Winter Landscape with a Bird Trap, 1631 Oil on panel, 35 x 55 cm Maastricht: Bonnefanten, donated with the support of the Rembrandt Association Photo Peter Cox.

The sixteenth century was a period of climate extremes, religious and political polarisation and epidemics. The sins were a way for artists and the public to respond to the social problems of the day.

The social problems in Bruegel’s Day were surprisingly similar to our own. These sixteenth-century depictions of the seven deadly sins therefore provide an ideal mirror for reflecting on our own times.

Exhibition overview Truly Wicked: The Seven Deadly Sins visualised, Bonnefanten, 2024. Photo: Peter Cox.

What is right and what is wrong?

Expect an exhibition on Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Anger, Lust and Greed. Truly Wicked: The Seven Deadly Sins visualised is possible thanks to the generous donation of over 80 diverse works of art by more than 20 national and international lenders. With this exhibition, the Bonnefanten shows a unique picture of good and evil in art from the long sixteenth century (c. 1480- 1620).

_{The Seven Deadly Sins}

Central to this exhibition is the renowned print series after Pieter Bruegel the Elder in which evil is depicted: The Seven Deadly Sins from 1558. Around this print series we show the precursors and sources of inspiration, works by contemporaries and imitators depicting the same themes. From cheap consumer art to precious collector's pieces.

What did sin look like in the 1600's and how does it compare to sin in our current time?

Thanks to

This exhibition is created with support from: Turing Foundation, Mondriaan Fund, VSBfonds, het Cultuurfonds (The Prins Fonds), The Phoebus Foundation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gravin van Bylandt Stichting, Ennatuurlijk, ERCO.

Bonnefanten is subsidised by The Province of Limburg, the Ministery of Education, Culture and Science and the VriendenLoterij.