Luxuria, lust, is viewed by Christian moral teaching as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. At the same time, luxury is part of art and of its festive character. Like gold, art works are ornamental, they confer status – yet at the same time, every work of distinction criticises its own glory and splendour. This ambivalence is disturbing. It leads to ethical questions. How do pearls turn into protest, how does luxury turn into criticism? Can ethics become a pleasure? Are style and morals reconcilable? Or in art do we always delight in immorality? Does this mean we are reproducing vice? What ornament, what luxury does humanity require?