Winter

Giuseppe Arcimboldo became court painter to Maxmilian II (1527-1576), Holy Roman Emperor, in 1562 based in Prague. There he painted two celebrated series of paintings– The Four Seasons and The Four Elements– to glorify Habsburg imperial rule. Of the original set of the Seasons, only Winter and Summer survive, both in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. nos. 1589 and 1590). The present work is a later copy of Winter, depicted as an old man formed from a gnarled tree trunk. Maximilian II commissioned a second set of The Four Seasons in 1573 as a gift to Augustus, Elector of Saxony. This complete set, now in the Musée du Louvre, is embellished with floral borders, as seen in the present painting.