Sanguine

These harmonious lovers represent the sanguine temperament, the personality trait governed by full-blooded happiness. The flowers, fruit, and vegetables before them associate this temperament with air: it aspires—literally, it breathes and is thus full of life. Their elegant costumes and luxurious tableware tell us they are rich, but the pleasures enjoyed by the small figures in the background—fishing, dancing, and shooting—are available to all.

This plate belongs to a series of four engravings designed by Maarten de Vos, the most important painter in late 16th-century Antwerp, and executed by the highly skilled Flemish engraver Pieter d Jode I, who happened to be in Venice when he incised the copper plate used to make this print.