Gloves are replete with associations to love, honor, and loyalty, and these accessories played an important symbolic role in the portraiture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As a surrogate for their owner, gloves could be indicative of both romantic love or political allegiance, as when a woman's glove was bestowed upon her chosen contestant to be worn in a tournament.The gauntlets on this pair of gloves contain small birds and flaming hearts, surely symbols of romantic devotion. The symbol of the flaming heart in a cartouche also appears in a Dutch collection of embroidery designs for fashionable accessories, dating to the 1620s, in the Museum's collection.