Allegory

c. 1600

Black and red chalk

371 × 235 mm

Esterházy collection

The subject matter of this Allegory is enigmatic. One of the figures around the seated boy at the centre is probably Venus crouching with the three Graces behind her. To the right, the young man wearing a wreath of wheat and holding ears of wheat in his hand symbolizes Summer, whereas a man wearing a wreath of vine leaves personifies Autumn. Below them, Ceres, the goddess of fertility, holding a horn of plenty signifies the season of Spring, while the male figure resting in the foreground in the pose of a river-god, who puts his hand above a bowl of embers, can be identified as Winter. The scene can probably be interpreted as an allegory of a new year or even the new – seventeenth – century. The indented outlines of the Budapest drawing suggest that the composition was used for a decorative object, a relief or perhaps a print.