Four Seasons in One Head (c.1590)

Four Seasons in One Head (c.1590), Giuseppe Arcimboldo From his own time as court painter in Vienna and Prague, the late Renaissance master Giuseppe Arcimboldo has been noted for his bizarre composite heads. Painted singly or in series, the heads combine plants, animals, and other objects appropriate to the themes Arcimboldo treated, such as the Four Seasons and the Four Elements (earth, air, fire, and water). The artist's Four Seasons in One Head, newly acquired by the Gallery, was publicly presented for the first time in the Arcimboldo retrospective held in Paris and Vienna in 2007. The exceptional importance of the picture was established in Sylvia Ferino-Pagden's exhibition catalogue entry, and its status as a late autograph masterpiece by the artist was recently confirmed by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann in his 2009 monograph. Kaufmann hails the painting as "one of the most startling discoveries of works by Arcimboldo in recent years." The panel is signed "ARCIMBOLDUS F," where the ba