An Advocate,

The message of this scene is immediately obvious: The left half of the picture is taken up by the grinning advocate, dripping in confidence, whose corpulent figure and expensive clothes underline his dominance. His antithesis is an emaciated man on the right, seen shaking his last coins from a bag onto the table. The subject of Van Reymerswaele’s satire is the legal system: the glut of documents suggests never-ending (and futile) lawsuits from which only the advocates profit, leaving the clients—themselves irreconcilable squabblers—well and truly fleeced.