Manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is not of the period, and may have been painted within the last half century, but it is carefully crafted nonetheless. A variety of techniques have been incorporated to create the sense of antiquity and character. It appears to be on an oak panel, which is flat and made from a series of sections of wood joined vertically. It does not seem that the work can be cleaned without damage to the original paint layer. Although cracking is visible in the background, this should remain unretouched.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This panel repeats the celebrated composition of Winter from Giuseppe Arcimboldo's anthropomorphic allegorical set of the Four Seasons, the prime versions of which are housed in the Kunsthistorisches, Vienna (Summer, Winter), and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid (Spring). The prime version of Autumn is lost.¹ The Four Seasons are the first known examples of the artist's most famous compositions, the teste composte, or "composite heads".  These portraits comprise of seemingly discordant natural elements, such as flowers, bark and fruit, to create a lively and theatrical portrayal.  Arcimboldo's clever inventions form the largest part of his oeuvre, and each allegorical portrait is repeated in several versions.

Arcimboldo entered service in the Habsburg Court, Vienna, in the early 1560s and the prime versions of the Four Seasons, dated 1563, are the earliest known works to be painted during his time there.²  Evidence through contemporary poems by Giovanni Battista Fontana suggest the Four Seasons were presented as gifts to Emperor Maximilian II on New Year's Day of 1569, along with their complementary series, the Four Elements.³  The composite heads, flush with symbols of the Habsburg Empire, were devised as an entertaining allegory of the family's rule, so titanic in its power that it might govern the very seasons and all the elements of the universe.

1.  T. Dacosta Kaufmann, Arcimboldo, Visual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting, Chicago and London 2009, p. 28, reproduced fig. 1.8.
2.  Ibid, p. 50.
3.  Ibid, p. 56.