boys' physical likeness indicates that they are more likely brothers. Based on the symbols used throughout the painting, its subject appears to be death. Two dark owl heads peek out over each shoulder of the boy in black while a crow’s or raven's head in profile with its sharp beak pointed towards the boy in black juts out from the right side of the head of the boy in red. Both the owl and the raven are traditional symbols of death. The stone panel at the top of the picture bears the artist's initials and recalls funerary sculpture. A total of 146 drawings have been attributed with certainty to van den Broeck. Of these, 89 are designs for engravings. His earliest drawing is dated 1560. It is possible that his tendency to accentuate the contours of forms made his drawings suited as designs for prints. Whether Van den Broeck himself also etched or engraved is unknown. From 1566 onwards van den Broeck started to create design drawings for publications by Christoffel Plantin, such as for Benito Arias Montano's Humanae salutis monumenta published in 1571. Van den Broeck also worked for print publishers Gerard de Jode, Adriaen Huybrechts, Hans van Luijck, Willem van Haecht the Elder and Plantin's successor Jan Moretus I. His designs were engraved by engravers such as Abraham de Bruyn, Jan Collaert the Elder and Johannes Wierix. He designed the illustration of the allegory of the Low Countries used in Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrizione di tutti I Paesi Bassi (1567). References External links 1523 births 1591 deaths Flemish Renaissance painters Flemish portrait painters Flemish history painters Painters from Antwerp Artists from Mechelen