Backgammon Players

This engraving was made after a painting by Dirck van Baburen. It carries a Latin inscription, “Irarum Causas Fugito” (Flee from the causes of anger) along with a Dutch one, which in translation reads: “A dicer and gamer is a wretch, he drinks and squanders his money and beats his wife.” The moralizing associations invoked by these inscriptions parallel those found in other engravings and literary texts.