Personifications of the Four Seasons, anonymous, after Giuseppe Arcimboldo, c. 1565 - c. 1580
etching, h 175mm × w 235mm More details
Giuseppe Arcimboldo worked at the imperial court in Vienna and Prague. In addition to actual portraits, he painted imaginary heads composed of flowers, plants, animals, kitchen utensils or food. Thanks to prints such as these, his inventions were also known and admired outside court circles. Since then they have been imitated so often that even nowadays one can speak of the Arcimboldo effect in relation to fantastically constructed works of art.
