Choleric

This fearsome mercenary and the well-supplied sutler stand for the choleric temperament, the personality trait that is bilious—quick to anger—due to an excess of yellow bile. As the burning building suggests, the soldier has a fiery temper. 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.