A man and a woman are weighed to assess their wealth for the purpose of marriage. Engraving, ca. 1600, after C. van Mander.

[The Netherlands] : [publisher not identified]

1 print : engraving ; platemark 24.2 x 17.1 cm

Non amor, aut virtus, sed dos aequata bilance / coniugium stabilit. Cedant duo fulmina belli, / in castrisque Syphax victus, Carthagoque migret. / Nil facit ad loculos, non implet scrinia fama. Si proavos numeres, sis vel Jove natus ab ipso / ito foras, nisi te locupletet onustior arca, / auripotensque suo foecundet munere Plutus. / Nummi gratus odor: pietasque, fidesque, valete. Paraphrase of lettering: It is not love or courage that makes a marriage stable, but a dowry that is at least equal on the scales. Should the two thunderbolts of war give way, Syphax, though conquered, would remain at war, and Carthage would change sides. Reputation is no substitute for money and does not fill the coffers. If you can count up your forefathers, or you are born of Jupiter himself, be off with you unless you are enriched by a loaded treasure chest and golden Wealth bestows the gift of his fruit on you. It is the smell of money that pleases: piety and loyalty, farewell! In the lettering, the"duo fulmina belli" are the two brothers Publius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus who, as Roman generals, fought against Carthage. Syphax was a Numidian king who changed sides between Carthage and Rome

The design is attributed to Van Mander because some of the prints in the set to which this print belongs bear his name as inventor. The engraving is attributed in the New Hollstein (loc. cit.) to an engraver in the workshop of Hendrick Goltzius, but in the British Museum online catalogue (2011) to Nicolaes Braeu, presumably because a similar set of four prints after Van Mander bears the lettering "Claus Braaw sculpsit" or "Nicolaus Bravius sculptor"

Marjolein Leesberg, Karel van Mander, Hollstein, edited by Huigen Leeflang and Christiaan Schuckman, Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Publishers, 1999 (The new Hollstein Dutch & Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts 1450-1700), no. 96.2 (The scales of marriage)

Wellcome Collection 38956i