Winter

A head emerges from a gnarled, leafless tree-stump, its skin made of cracked bark, its hair a tangle of bare twigs, an ivy crown sprouting at the top and a lemon and orange hung at the breast. Arcimboldo, court painter to the Habsburg emperors in Vienna and Prague, built his famous composite portraits entirely from natural objects, and Winter is one of his Four Seasons. The withered old man stands for the year's dying months - and, flatteringly, for the enduring rule of the House of Habsburg, evergreen amid decay. Its companions Summer, Autumn, and Spring are also in this collection.