Allegory of Envy

In this engraving, a stoic and withered older woman stands in the center foreground, her aging body contrasting sharply with the youthful, idealized nudes surrounding her. To the left, a couple embraces while seated on a rock, accompanied by a small child, while to the right, another couple stands in an intimate pose. The scene is set in a lush landscape that leads toward a distant fortified city on a hill.

The figure of the emaciated woman serves as a stark moralizing allegory on the passage of time and the destructive nature of envy, themes frequently explored in Renaissance Neoplatonic circles regarding the soul's detachment from the temporal world.