Image description for Decorative initial letter T with cherubs hanging a wolf

A large capital letter T in red, with a little yellow on the left and top, sits in a roughly square box outlined in black. The box contains a drawing that incorporates the letter T itself, and which has been coloured.

In the drawing are six cherubs or putti, naked wingless little children (traditionally boys bit no genitals are visible here) that were fashionable in the sixteenth century, when this image was made.

Two of the boys are on the right of the T, pulling on a rope that loops over the left-hand crossbar of the T and down to where it is tied round the rear paws of a wolf. The wolf’s jaws are tied shut with more rope, and two more cherubs are helping to take the weight as the wolf is lifted up. In the background on the left, behind the wolf, are the last two of the six little children, looking conspiratorially at each other; one of them is holding up a stick, suggesting that they plan to beat the poor wolf.

In the background, neoclassical ruins, a blue sky, a tree. In the foreground at lower right, perhaps a knife, but it could just be a path or step. At lower left a block of wood or stone, perhaps tied to the wolf’s muzzle.

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