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The subject of the painting is easily recognisable: the sleeping child symbolises infancy, whereas maturity and youth are represented by a vigorous man in armour and by a young woman looking towards him, seductively offering roses; the bent white-haired man behind them symbolises old age.
However it is also possible to interpret the painting in a mythological key, seeing the two young people as the lovers Mars and Venus, the child as a sleeping Cupid, while the old man with his gloomy, severe expression could allude to Vulcan, betrayed by his young wife.
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