Ages of man: first stage, childhood from birth to the age of sixteen and the classical orders of architecture: composite. Engraving by Johan Wierix, 1577, after Jan Vredeman de Vries.

This print, one of a series of seven, was published as the "Theatrum vitae humanae" and displayed six stages of the life of man, in connection with the five architectural orders (the sixth being destruction, showing ruins and skeletons representing death). A priest stands in the foreground of a colonnaded playground full of children with a variety of toys, some of whom are fighting or wandering off. The priest is praying so that God may perfect nature's defects in the children