Giuseppe Arcimboldo, circle of, 17th century Allegory of summer. Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 93×72 cm. Literature: Francine-Claire Legrand and Félix Sluys, “Guiseppe Arcimboldo et les arcimboldesques”, Aalter 1955, mentioned p. 88 and p. 267, no. 31. Ill. plate 31. The book is enclosed. Provenance: The Anfuso Collection, Rome (1955). Koller Auctions, Zürich, Sept. 2007 no. 3074. Apollo to Apollo Collection by Henrik Bo Andersen. The Italian mannerist Arcimboldo (1527–1593) is especially known for his bizarre and illusionistic “composite heads”; portraits where human faces and bodies are made up of figures such as flowers, plants, fruits, and tools, etc. Arcimboldo enjoyed great recognition for his imaginative art in his time, and he served as court painter for Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. In the centuries after his death, however, he fell into oblivion and was only rediscovered in the beginning of the 20th century, by the Surrealists among others, who considered him a great source of inspiration and a forerunner of modern art. In 1936 his works were included in the famous exhibition “Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism” at MoMA in New York. Arcimboldo’s series ”The Four Seasons”, consisting of four allegorical portraits, each depicting a different season through the vegetation of the season in question, became among his most popular “composite heads”. The series was repeated and copied by him and his workshop several times, and several of his students executed paintings in his style in the years following his death. According to “Guiseppe Arcimboldo et les arcimboldesques”, the present painting presumably belongs to a series of four season paintings, of which winter is in the Toeplitz Collection in Rome, autumn in the Buzzi Collection in Milan, and spring at Castello Sforzesco also in Milan. The present painting is an allegory of summer and depicts a person in profile through the fruits of the summer and the harvest; torso and face thus consist of pears, plums, apples and quinces, among other things, while a squash forms the arm that carries the open, ripe melons. The head wears a wreath of ears of corn. The painting has been examined at Statens Museum for Kunst (The National Gallery of Denmark) in Copenhagen. From analyses of the canvas and the type and colour of the priming, one can conclude that the work was painted in the 17th century, possibly in Italy.
Condition
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, circle of, 17th century Allegory of summer. Unsigned. Oil on canvas. 93×72 cm. Literature: Francine-Claire Legrand and Félix Sluys, “Guiseppe Arcimboldo et les arcimboldesques”, Aalter 1955, mentioned p. 88 and p. 267, no. 31. Ill. plate 31. The book is enclosed. Provenance: The Anfuso Collection, Rome (1955). Koller Auctions, Zürich, Sept. 2007 no. 3074. Apollo to Apollo Collection by Henrik Bo Andersen. The Italian mannerist Arcimboldo (1527–1593) is especially known for his bizarre and illusionistic “composite heads”; portraits where human faces and bodies are made up of figures such as flowers, plants, fruits, and tools, etc. Arcimboldo enjoyed great recognition for his imaginative art in his time, and he served as court painter for Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. In the centuries after his death, however, he fell into oblivion and was only rediscovered in the beginning of the 20th century, by the Surrealists among others, who considered him a great source of inspiration and a forerunner of modern art. In 1936 his works were included in the famous exhibition “Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism” at MoMA in New York. Arcimboldo’s series ”The Four Seasons”, consisting of four allegorical portraits, each depicting a different season through the vegetation of the season in question, became among his most popular “composite heads”. The series was repeated and copied by him and his workshop several times, and several of his students executed paintings in his style in the years following his death. According to “Guiseppe Arcimboldo et les arcimboldesques”, the present painting presumably belongs to a series of four season paintings, of which winter is in the Toeplitz Collection in Rome, autumn in the Buzzi Collection in Milan, and spring at Castello Sforzesco also in Milan. The present painting is an allegory of summer and depicts a person in profile through the fruits of the summer and the harvest; torso and face thus consist of pears, plums, apples and quinces, among other things, while a squash forms the arm that carries the open, ripe melons. The head wears a wreath of ears of corn. The painting has been examined at Statens Museum for Kunst (The National Gallery of Denmark) in Copenhagen. From analyses of the canvas and the type and colour of the priming, one can conclude that the work was painted in the 17th century, possibly in Italy.
Condition
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