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Lot Essay
This inventive anthropomorphic figure, composed of the produce of the autumn harvest, belongs to a celebrated tradition of teste composte ultimately inspired by the fantastical creations of the sixteenth-century Milanese painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. The bust emerges from cascades of ripening grapes in purple, red and green, its torso formed of clustered apples, quinces and pears, its head crowned with vine leaves and late-season fruits. A split pomegranate at the chest reveals its glistening ruby seeds, while the figure's outstretched arm is ingeniously constructed from a chain of pears and apples. Set against a luminous sky streaked with cloud, the composition achieves both wit and monumentality—the figure at once a portrait, a still life and an allegory of natural abundance.
The origins of this distinctive type lie in Arcimboldo's work at the Habsburg courts of Vienna and Prague, where his composite heads delighted contemporaries as visual paradoxes and potent emblems of imperial dominion. Yet the present composition follows a variant tradition that flourished in Rome during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In his 1642 Le vite de' pittori, scultori & architetti, the painter and historian Giovanni Baglione credited the Florentine flower painter Francesco Zucchi (1562-1622) with the invention of 'a way of composing and coloring the heads of the Four Seasons with their fruits, flowers, and other things which in the time of those seasons Nature customarily brings forth' (see L. Salerno, La natura morta italiana, Rome, 1984, p. 54). Baglione noted that Zucchi 'devised them so well that he made all the parts appear outwardly, just as we perceive them in human heads, and copies of this invention of his are seen everywhere in great numbers.' It was Zucchi, a contemporary of Caravaggio long active in Rome, who appears to have popularized this distinctly Roman development of Arcimboldo's legacy.
A cycle of four such Seasons in a private collection was first attributed to Francesco Zucchi by Luigi Salerno (ibid., p. 55, figs. 14.3-6), while Gianni and Ulisse Bocchi subsequently published a different series which they attributed to the Roman flower painter Giovanni Stanchi (1608-after 1673); see G. and U. Bocchi, Pittori di natura morta a Roma, artisti italiani 1630-1750, Viadana, 2005, pp. 273–76, figs. FS.31–FS.34 (sold Sotheby's, London, 6 December 2017, lot 23, for £465,000; a further set of four catalogued as by a ‘Follower of Arcimboldo’, sold Christie's, New York, 6 June 2012, lot 34, $662,500). The question of attribution between Zucchi and Stanchi remains open, reflecting the difficulty of distinguishing individual hands within this closely related group of compositions.
Claudio Strinati (unpublished letter to the previous owner, 24 July 1996) attributed the present Allegory of Autumn to Francesco Zucchi. Strinati drew comparison with the signed Arcimboldesque still life by Zucchi in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (see La Natura morta al tempo di Caravaggio, Rome-Milan, 1995-96, no. 21, p. 123). Strinati praised the painting's excellent state of conservation and the refinement and delicacy of Zucchi's execution, situating the work at the highest moment of the artist's career, immediately before 1600. He noted that the deep, richly varied palette evokes the festive character of ephemeral decoration—almost a carnival float—a playful Tuscan sensibility shared with Zucchi's celebrated brother, Jacopo. In Strinati's reading, these images transform festive and ironic subjects into solemn and finished works of art at the frontier between naturalistic and mimetic still-life painting.
The present work, of notable quality among the known variations of this subject, exemplifies the playful transformation of naturalistic observation into emblematic invention. The masterful handling of the still-life elements—the translucent bloom on the grapes, the subtle gradations of ripeness across the apples and pears, the textured surfaces of vine leaves and fruit—distinguishes it as the work of an accomplished painter. Immersed in the abundance of grapes that identifies its autumnal subject, the figure stands as a witty yet sophisticated meditation on nature's seasonal cycles, its imagery at once decorative and allegorical.
We are grateful to John T. Spike for his helpful consultation on this entry.
The origins of this distinctive type lie in Arcimboldo's work at the Habsburg courts of Vienna and Prague, where his composite heads delighted contemporaries as visual paradoxes and potent emblems of imperial dominion. Yet the present composition follows a variant tradition that flourished in Rome during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In his 1642 Le vite de' pittori, scultori & architetti, the painter and historian Giovanni Baglione credited the Florentine flower painter Francesco Zucchi (1562-1622) with the invention of 'a way of composing and coloring the heads of the Four Seasons with their fruits, flowers, and other things which in the time of those seasons Nature customarily brings forth' (see L. Salerno, La natura morta italiana, Rome, 1984, p. 54). Baglione noted that Zucchi 'devised them so well that he made all the parts appear outwardly, just as we perceive them in human heads, and copies of this invention of his are seen everywhere in great numbers.' It was Zucchi, a contemporary of Caravaggio long active in Rome, who appears to have popularized this distinctly Roman development of Arcimboldo's legacy.
A cycle of four such Seasons in a private collection was first attributed to Francesco Zucchi by Luigi Salerno (ibid., p. 55, figs. 14.3-6), while Gianni and Ulisse Bocchi subsequently published a different series which they attributed to the Roman flower painter Giovanni Stanchi (1608-after 1673); see G. and U. Bocchi, Pittori di natura morta a Roma, artisti italiani 1630-1750, Viadana, 2005, pp. 273–76, figs. FS.31–FS.34 (sold Sotheby's, London, 6 December 2017, lot 23, for £465,000; a further set of four catalogued as by a ‘Follower of Arcimboldo’, sold Christie's, New York, 6 June 2012, lot 34, $662,500). The question of attribution between Zucchi and Stanchi remains open, reflecting the difficulty of distinguishing individual hands within this closely related group of compositions.
Claudio Strinati (unpublished letter to the previous owner, 24 July 1996) attributed the present Allegory of Autumn to Francesco Zucchi. Strinati drew comparison with the signed Arcimboldesque still life by Zucchi in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (see La Natura morta al tempo di Caravaggio, Rome-Milan, 1995-96, no. 21, p. 123). Strinati praised the painting's excellent state of conservation and the refinement and delicacy of Zucchi's execution, situating the work at the highest moment of the artist's career, immediately before 1600. He noted that the deep, richly varied palette evokes the festive character of ephemeral decoration—almost a carnival float—a playful Tuscan sensibility shared with Zucchi's celebrated brother, Jacopo. In Strinati's reading, these images transform festive and ironic subjects into solemn and finished works of art at the frontier between naturalistic and mimetic still-life painting.
The present work, of notable quality among the known variations of this subject, exemplifies the playful transformation of naturalistic observation into emblematic invention. The masterful handling of the still-life elements—the translucent bloom on the grapes, the subtle gradations of ripeness across the apples and pears, the textured surfaces of vine leaves and fruit—distinguishes it as the work of an accomplished painter. Immersed in the abundance of grapes that identifies its autumnal subject, the figure stands as a witty yet sophisticated meditation on nature's seasonal cycles, its imagery at once decorative and allegorical.
We are grateful to John T. Spike for his helpful consultation on this entry.