The recently released Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce engagement photo is a part of a centuries-old tradition of "meticulously choreographed courtship", according to an art history expert.

By now, nearly every aspect of the widely shared photo announcing the engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, posted to Instagram on 26 August 2025, has been carefully combed for hidden clues it may contain about the nature of the couple's simultaneously private and public relationship. From the so-called "snake lilies" spotted in the secret garden where Kelce's proposal occurred (allegedly an allusion to the snake symbolism of Swift's 2017 album Reputation), to the rhyming Ralph Lauren outfits worn by the couple, to the lit-wick dynamite emoji that punctuates the teasingly terse caption to the image "Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married" – an explosive acronymic pun on TNT, or "Taylor 'n Travis" – not a single pixel or petal of the image appears to have been left unturned.

But such forensic sifting risks missing the bigger picture. While the photo is in many respects as unique as the ginormous gemstone that now glimmers on Swift's ring finger (an elongated cushion-cut diamond that has been traced back to the studio of New York City-based designer Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry), the image nevertheless echoes contours of a long tradition in art history of meticulously choreographed courtship. However candid the snapshot seems, it resonates with a rich visual history. It follows rules. With the help of artists from the Northern Renaissance to French Realism of the 19th Century, here is a handy guide for assessing not the "four cs" of the gemmologist – cut, colour, clarity and carat – but the "six cs" of the sparkling Swift/Kelce stage set.

Van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434

In the famous double portrait by the 15th-Century Flemish master, a merchant and his bride stand stiffly in a plush interior. Their postures are as rigid as the pair of discarded clogs beside them. A convex mirror behind them tugs their reflections in and out of perspective. Everything here is symbol: the single candle, the oranges, the rosary beads, and the rich red bed. Emblems of divine witness, prosperity, devotion, and fidelity. The artist wasn't........

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