Lady with Four Children - Allegory of Charity

Vaillant likely portrayed the members of his large family. Several portraits of women, as well as this one with a mother and her children, have been considered as depictions of the artist’s wife, but Wallerant never married. One copy of this engraving bears a contemporary inscription identifying the figure as the wife of Wallerant’s brother, Bernard. In the second state of the print, Vaillant added the inscription Charitas (Charity), meaning the sheet was to be taken also as an allegory of Christian love (the exhibited copy has been trimmed and the inscription is missing).