Charlotte de Bourbon Goltzius 1581

This engraving depicts Charlotte de Bourbon in an oval frame, dressed in noble Renaissance attire and standing beside a table with a book. The surrounding decorative border features four small scenes in the corners representing the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—each accompanied by a Latin caption. The intricate frame includes heraldic elements and symbolic animals like a hare and a turtle, reflecting the mannerist style of the period.

The inclusion of four allegorical scenes representing the elements suggests a cosmological framework often found in Renaissance emblem books and natural philosophy, linking the noble subject to the harmonic order of the created world. The accompanying verses reinforce themes of constancy and the triumph of light (the dawn/aurora) over darkness, motifs common in late 16th-century courtly and symbolic literature.