Mammon (originally exhibited as Mammon. Dedicated to his Worshippers) is an 1885 oil painting by the English artist George Frederic Watts (1817–1904), currently held at Tate Britain in London.
Background
George Frederic Watts was a prominent Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He became widely known for his allegorical works, which he intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life." By the 1880s, Watts was one of the most highly regarded artists in the world.
Subject and Composition
The painting depicts Mammon, the personification of greed, based on a scene from Book II of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590s), in which the protagonist Guyon encounters Mammon in a cave filled with immense riches. Watts also drew on the figure of Mammon as portrayed in John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667).
Watts depicted Mammon as a corrupted, demonic deity seated on a throne decorated with skulls. The figure wears gold and scarlet robes and a headdress resembling donkey's ears—an allusion to Thomas Carlyle's description of "Mammonism grown Midas-eared" in Past and Present, as well as to the myth of King Midas. Mammon's right hand rests heavily on the head of a crouching woman, and his left foot presses down on a prostrate male figure. Money bags sit in his lap. The background includes a curtained backdrop reminiscent of Titian's portraits, with a glimpse of fire and destruction beyond.
Watts aimed to show Mammon not as deliberately cruel but as indifferent to the damage he causes, crushing "whatever is weak and gentle and timid and lovely" through obliviousness. The work reflected Watts's belief that the worship of wealth was replacing religion in modern society and leading to social deterioration.
Dimensions and Medium
The painting is executed in oil on canvas, measuring 182.9 cm × 106 cm (72.0 in × 42 in).
Exhibition and Provenance
The painting was first exhibited in 1885 under the title Mammon. Dedicated to his Worshippers. In late 1886, Watts donated it along with a number of other works to the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). In 1897, it was among 17 Watts paintings transferred to the newly created Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain), where an entire room was dedicated to his works.
Reception and Legacy
Although rarely exhibited outside the Tate Gallery, cheap photographic reproductions of Mammon made by Frederick Hollyer circulated widely, making it one of Watts's better-known paintings. In 1887, Scottish theologian P. T. Forsyth discussed the painting in his lectures on "Religion in Recent Art," considering it a companion to Watts's 1885 painting Hope, as both depicted false gods. By 1904, the image was sufficiently well known that the Daily Express reproduced the head of Mammon alongside that of John D. Rockefeller, implicitly inviting readers to draw comparisons.
Watts returned to the theme of greed in his final work Progress (1902–1904), which includes the figure of Mammon as one of three figures representing what Watts called "non-progress."
Related Works
An oil sketch of Mammon is held at the Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey. A separate painting titled The Worship of Mammon (1909) by Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919) also addresses the theme of materialism versus spiritual wellbeing, depicting a woman clutching at the knee of a statue of Mammon.
