Youth

This tapestry belongs to a set of eight on The Arts and Sciences in the Colección Santander, which must in turn have been part of a larger group of which some are now missing. The different size of the individual tapestries is due to the fact that they were woven for specific locations, forming what was known in Brussels as a chambre en tapisserie.

In this panel a young woman holding a sundial looks at a pendulum clock standing on an architectural element with a classical low relief. In the background we see two more women. The meaning of the panel is relatively obscure. The woman does not seem to represent any particular mythological character relating to time, such as Urania, but rather one of the ages of Man. She may be Youth, who, however, is normally depicted seated on a sphere that is not to be seen here. In contrast, the low relief with satyrs seem to refer to the sensuality characteristic of that phase of life.

All the tapestries in the set involve two themes: a moral one relating to the life of man, his virtues and vices, and an exaltation of the Arts, encompassing the Liberal Arts and the so-called Fine Arts.