Giuseppe Arcimboldo
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Italy ( Milano 1527 - Milano 1593 ) - Artworks Wikipedia® - Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Palais Dorotheum / Jun 17, 2008
€2,500.00 - €3,000.00
Not Sold
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Variants on Artist's name :
Arcimboldi
Arcinboldi
Along with Giuseppe Arcimboldo, our clients also searched for the following authors:
Giovanni Battista I Della Rovere,l Fiammenghino, Belisario Corenzio, Marco Cardisco, Filippo D Angeli, Giulio Parigi, Luca Cambiaso, Johannes Christianus
Giovanni Battista I Della Rovere,l Fiammenghino, Belisario Corenzio, Marco Cardisco, Filippo D Angeli, Giulio Parigi, Luca Cambiaso, Johannes Christianus
Artworks in Arcadja
36
Some works of Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Extracted between 36 works in the catalog of Arcadja
Giuseppe Arcimboldo - A Reversible Anthropomorphic Portrait Of A Man Composed Of Fruit
Original
Auction:
Christie's -
Jan 25, 2012- New York
Lot number:
28
Other WORKS AT AUCTIONDescription:
Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Milan? c. 1527-1593 Milan)
A reversible anthropomorphic portrait of a man composed of fruit
oil on panel
22 x 16 3/8 in. (55.9 x 41.6 cm.)
(Probably) painted for Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612), and by inheritance in Prague, and recorded in the 1621 inventory of the Imperial collections, Prague, no. 1087: 'Ein angesicht von allerlei obst vom Arsimboldo' and again in the 1635 inventory, no. 57, as 'Ein contrafaict von früchten von Arcimboldo'.
(Probably) removed during the sack of Prague in 1648 by Swedish troops and recorded in the 1648 inventory of looted works as 'Ein anderes [volto] von Frickten'.
(Probably) Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) and recorded as one of the two paintings listed under no. 318, 'Dito [de Prague], deux figures assorties de plusieurs fruits et animaux'.
Private collection, Sweden.
Anonymous sale; Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stockholm, 18 May 1999, lot 1389, as 'Manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo'.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 28 January 2000, lot 129 ($1,432,500) to the present owner.
(Probably) H. Zimmermann, 'Das Inventar der Prager Schatz und Kunstkammer von 6. Dezember 1621 nach Akten des K. und K. Reichsfinanzarchiv in Wien,' Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, XXV, 1905, reg. no. 19437 no. 57.
G. Berra, Natura morta italiana tra Cinquecento e Settecento, exhibition catalogue, Milan, [2002], pp. 78, 463.
T.D. Kaufmann, 'The Artificial and the Natural: Arcimboldo and the Origins of Still Life', in The Artificial and the Natural. An Evolving Polarity, eds. B. Bensaude-Vincent and W. Newman, Cambridge and London, 2007, pp. 149-184.
Paris Match, September 2007, cover illustration.
T.D. Kaufmann, Arcimboldo: Visual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting, Chicago and London, 2009, pp. 1, 61, 62, 105, 168, 177, 179, 208, 209, 211, fig. 7.5.
S. Ferino-Pagden, ed., Arcimboldo: Artista milanese tra Leonardo e Caravaggio, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2011, pp. 320-323, 343-346, 376, no. 326.
Cremona, Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Vincenzo Campi: scene del quotidiano, 2 December 2000-18 March 2001, pp. 60, 66-68, 77, 212-213, no. 39, figs. 6a-b (catalogue entry by G. Berra).
Düsseldorf, Museum Kunst Palast, Dalí und die Magier der Mehrdeutigkeit, 22 February-9 June 2003, p. 147.
Paris, Musée du Luxembourg, and Vienna, Kunsthistorische Museum, Arcimboldo, 1526-1593, 15 September 2007-13 January 2008 and 12 February-1 June 2008, no. IV.33, pp. 178-181, as 'Giuseppe Arcimboldo (?)' (catalogue note by T.D. Kaufmann).
Paris, Galeries nationales Grand Palais, Une image peut en cacher une autre: Arcimboldo, Dali, Raetz, 8 April-6 July 2009, no. 40, p. 74 and frontispiece.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, and Milan, Palazzo Reale, Arcimboldo: 1526-1593 - Nature and Fantasy, 19 September 2010-9 January 2011 and 27 January 2011-8 May 2011, no. 15, fig. 28.
This remarkable, invertible panel constitutes an important new addition to both the small corpus of works by Giuseppe Arcimboldo and to the history of European still-life painting. In one direction, it reads as a still-life of various fruit including grapes, apples, a pear, an olive, a chestnut husk, cherries, prunes, and a pomegranate, all arranged in a wicker basket. When rotated 180 degrees, however, these objects suddenly transform into a composite head of a man.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born in 1526 into a distinguished Lombard family. He received his artistic training from his father, the Milanese painter Biagio Arcimboldo, alongside whom he completed several projects relating to the ongoing decoration campaign of Milan Cathedral. Like many of his contemporaries, Giuseppe worked in a wide range of media, designing stained-glass windows, tapestries and frescoes not only in Milan, but also in the nearby towns of Monza and Como. His surviving work from this period, while accomplished, provides only the faintest indication of the radical new inventions that he would create in the mature phase of his career.
In 1562, Arcimboldo departed Italy for the North, entering into the service of the Habsburg court in Central Europe. There, he worked as imperial painter, first under Ferdinand I (r. 1558-1564), then Maximilian II (r. 1564-1576) and finally under perhaps his greatest patron, Rudolf II (r. 1576-1612). Like many court artists, Arcimboldo enjoyed a wide range of responsibilities including designing costumes and textiles, orchestrating festivals, and managing the imperial collections. First and foremost, he worked as the official court portraitist, and it is likely that it was in this capacity that he was initially called to work for Ferdinand I in Vienna.
It is now generally accepted that Arcimboldo produced his first composite heads at the imperial court in the 1560s while in the service of Maximilian II (Kaufmann, op. cit., 2009, p. 8). Precedents have been found in a variety of sources ranging from ancient writings such as Horace's Ars poetica and antique gems to more contemporary sources such as the writings and sketches of Leonardo da Vinci and the composite heads of phalloi that appear on Casteldurazzo plates (for more on these sources, see Kaufmann, op. cit., 2009, pp. 36 ff.). Yet Arcimboldo took the idea of combining disparate objects to create a unified whole to a higher level, and textual sources make it clear that his paintings were recognized as something altogether new. Writing in 1592, for instance, the biographer Paolo Morigia (Morigi) ascribed the invention of composite images entirely to Arcimboldo, noting that his designs were copied in many prints, 'Tutti quei disegni che si veggono in stampa di ramo, di queste invention e bizzarie, tutte sono invention di questo nostro Milanese' (P. Morigia [Morigi], Historia dell'antichità di Milano, Venice, 1592, p. 567). Moreover, this sentiment is repeated by the Mantuan canon Gregorio Comanini, who notes that Arcimboldo's inventions were frequently stolen by other artists (G.P. Comanini, 'Il Figino, overo del fine della pittura', in P. Barocchi, ed., Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, Bari, 1962, III, p. 270). Giuseppe's paintings appear to have pleased the imperial court immensely, and in his lifetime his fame for them became widespread. In fact, Rudolf II's admiration of - and gratitude toward - Arcimboldo was such that he ennobled the artist, creating him Count palatine in 1592.
Around 1587, Arcimboldo returned to Milan, where he continued to paint in the service of Rudolf II. There, he created masterpieces such as his Vertumnus (fig. 1) and Flora, both of which were sent to Prague. He remained in Milan for the rest of his life.
Whereas certain precedents may be found for Arcimboldo's composite heads, reversibility appears to have been entirely the artist's own invention. The earliest record of this type of portrait refers to a now-lost painting that was displayed in the private chambers of Maximilian II. Writing in 1573, Ottavio Landi describes that in February of that year, Duke Elector August of Saxony visited the emperor in Vienna and noted that he saw a portrait of Doctor Johann Ulrich Zasius, Maximilian's vice chancellor, which was made of papers and, when turned upside down, it formed a vase with dried and fresh flowers (see K. Rudolf, 'Die Kunstbestrebungen Kaiser Maximilians II. im Spannungsfeld zwischen Madrid und Wien', Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, XCI, 1995, p. 166). As Kaufmann notes, since Zasius died in 1570, this provides a terminus ante quem for the invention of this portrait type. In addition to the present painting, only two invertible portraits by Giuseppe Arcimbolo have survived. The first - and most likely the earliest - is commonly called The Cook (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) and represents in one direction, two hands lifting a silver cloche to reveal a roasted baby pig and other cooked animals arranged on a silver platter. When inverted it reads as a comical portrait of a man in profile. The second painting is the so-called Vegetable Gardener (Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Cremona), which depicts a bowl of root vegetables that becomes a jovial man's portly head topped by a hat when inverted (fig. 2).
The present painting's secure attribution to Arcimboldo rests on several factors. Stylistically, it is closely related to the artist's Flora (1589) and Vertumnus (1590), both of which were executed in Milan and sent to Rudolf II in Prague. All three share the same rigorous plasticity and naturalistic rendering of still-life elements. Kaufmann has also observed similarities to the highlights on the leaves and the 'liquescent handling of grapes' seen in Flora (Kaufmann, op. cit., 2007, p. 179). Moreover, in the Vertumnus and in the present painting, Arcimboldo employed the same groupings of fruit to form his portraits: a pear for the nose, two apples for the cheeks, cherries for the lips, grapes for the hair. Based on this evidence, Kaufmann suggests that the present painting precedes the Vertumnus, which he considers more complex. Berra acknowledges this theory, but also defends the possibility that the reverse may be true. Both scholars agree that in either case, this present panel was almost certainly painted in Milan, and most likely was also sent to Rudolf II in Prague. Archival evidence seems to support this theory. The panel may be identified as the painting recorded in the inventory of the Imperial collections in Prague, no. 1087: 'Ein angesicht von allerlei obst vom Arsimboldo. [Orig.]' and again in the inventory of 1635, no. 57 'Ein contrafaict von früchten von Arcimboldo' (in H. Zimmermann, loc. cit.).
The composition is painted on linden wood, a support customarily used on both sides of the Alps, including Lombardy, where it is believed Arcimboldo executed this panel. The name 'ARCIMBOLD' is scratched onto the panel's reverse, where the inscription 'Transka Fideicommiss Wasa' also appears, indicating that it was owned by the trust of an old Swedish family. Kaufmann (op. cit., 2007, p. 178) and Berra (op. cit., 2001, p. 212) agree that this provenance lends further support to the theory that the painting belonged to Rudolf II, as it could have been removed during the sack of Prague in 1648 by Swedish troops along with other works by Arcimboldo including Vertumnus and Flora. Berra further suggests that the panel can be associated with other paintings of composite reversible heads that appear in later Swedish inventories without attributions to Arcimboldo, such as the 1648, 'Ein anderes [volto] von Frichten' (in B. Dudík, 'Die Rudolphinische Kunst und Raritätenkammer in Prag', Mitteilungen der K.K. Central Commission zur Erforschung und Erhaltung der Baudenkmale, XII, 1867, p. XXXIX, no. 351). In the inventory of Bogesund of 1659 and 1680 one finds 'Ett stycke af Frucht sammansatt' (in Granberg, 1930, II, p. 177), and finally the 1680 inventory of the Farnese di Parma collection, 'Un vaso di frutta che forma la testa di un villano' (in Campori 1870, p. 300). The present painting may also have been recorded in a print by Paul Flindt representing a series of 'vier Phantast-Köpfe' (fig. 3) that was incised in Nuremburg in 1611 (see Berra, op. cit, 2002, p. 213).
While there is certainly an element of humor in these paintings, Kaufmann has emphasized that to Arcimboldo's original audience, they were understood to be more than comical diversions. Rather than mere flights of fancy, he argues, the artist's composite and invertible portraits were interpreted as 'serious jokes' that not only comment on the nature of art, but on nature itself (Kaufmann, op. cit., 2009, pp. 91 ff.).
Executed during Arcimboldo's time in Milan, this work constitutes an early example of independent still-life painting. Scholars are now increasingly recognizing Arcimboldo's seminal role in this genre's history in Italy, particularly in relation to artists of the subsequent generation, such as Caravaggio (Kaufmann, op. cit., 2009, pp. 191 ff.). Indeed, Caravaggio's selection of a wicker basket to hold his flowers in his Basket of Fruit in the Pinoteca di Brera, Milan, may have been directly inspired by the present painting. Arcimboldo's ripening fruit may also have encouraged Caravaggio to concentrate on the effects of time, resulting in his composition's famous wilting leaves. Other local artists such as Fede Galizia and Ambrogio Figino must also have been receptive to Arcimboldo's innovations, as their work reflects a similar preoccupation with naturalistically rendering still-life elements as well as with treating them as prime subject matter for their compositions.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo - An Allegory Of Death
Original 1586
Auction:
Sotheby's -
Jul 10, 2002- London
Lot number:
103
Other WORKS AT AUCTIONDescription:
pen and brown ink and wash over traces of black chalk, indented for transfer this lot contains 1 item(s).
the imaginative and sometimes surreal use of images is powerful in the world of arcimboldo. the images of tangible things get combined in a fantasy to create something new and surprising, either for moralising purposes or simply to amuse. this study shows death climbing a ladder, placed against a house that takes the form of a head, to enter by one eye/window, while a young woman, representing the soul, opens the window of the other eye to escape. around the base of the 'building' is a thorn hedge, presumably representing the
hortus clausus
of emblematic literature. the drawing is indented for transfer, but we have not succeeded in finding the print or book illustration for which it is the design. a similar image appears in an anonymous woodcut in the
veridicus christianus,
by johannes david, published in 1601 (see
the arcimboldo effect,
exh. cat. venice, palazzo grassi, 1987, p.198), and in several later emblem books, but so far we have failed to find any earlier image of this type, so it is possible that this drawing represents an original iconographic creation by arcimboldo. in terms of figure style and handling, this drawing is very similar to the series of thirteen drawings by arcimboldo illustrating
Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Autumn: An Anthropomorphic Portrait Of A Man
Original 1572
Auction:
Sotheby's -
May 23, 2001- New York
Lot number:
105
Other WORKS AT AUCTIONDescription:
*giuseppe arcimboldo (1527-1593) autumn: an anthropomorphic portrait of a man oil on canvas 35 1/2 by 27 1/2 in. 90.2 by 69.8 cm. arcimboldo is one of the most fascinating and unique artists of the western tradition. his fame, which was considerable even in his own time, is founded on the basis of his series of fantastic composite heads executed for emperor maximilian ii at his court in vienna and, later, for emperor rudolf ii in prague. arcimboldo was a member of a prominent milanese family and the son of biagio, also a painter. he was first summoned for imperial service by ferdinand i in 1562 and, by 1564, is recorded as a portrait painter for maximilian ii. he also served the court as an organizer of festivals, tournaments and theatrical presentations. the present painting relates to a composition from the artist's most famous series, the four seasons, which he presented to emperor maximilian ii on new years day, 1569. each season is depicted as an anthropomorphic head, made up of fruit, fish, flowers and virtually anything else the artist thought would suit his purposes. to further the allegory, each head corresponds to a season in man's life. for example, spring is depicted as a young man made of flowers, while winter is an old man with a scraggly beard made out of gnarled branches. these depictions were meant not only to amuse the king and his court, but were also meant as allegorical allusions to the imperial rule (see t.d. kaufmann, "the allegories and their meaning," in the arcimboldo effect, transformations of the face from the 16th century to the 20th century, catalogue of the exhibition, venice, palazzo grassi, 1987, pp. 89-108). their meanings have been further clarified by the discovery of poems written by arcimboldo's friend and colleague giovanni battista fonteo. of the original series on panel given to the emperor, summer (dated 1563) and winter are in the kunsthistorisches museum, vienna; the spring in the real academia de bellas artes de san fernando, madrid is now thought to be part of that series as well. the original autumn is lost. undoubtedly, the great success of these fantastic heads was considerable, and arcimboldo took up these compositions again later in his career. the present depiction of autumn was once considered a workshop replica (see literature below), but recent scholarship has re-established its autograph status. it forms part of one of the later autograph series of which one other painting survives, the summer now in the denver art museum, denver, colorado; it is also oil on canvas, with nearly identical dimensions (90 by 70 cm.), and also formerly in the bridel-boiceau collection, lausanne. the denver summer is dated 1572 giving a circa date of the same year to the present painting. another autograph and complete series of the four seasons (also oil on canvas, the summer dated 1573) is in the musee du louvre. provenance: bridel-boiceau collection, lausanne exhibited: denver, denver museum of art, on loan, december 1999-april 2001 literature: t.d. kaufmann, the school of prague, painting at the court of rudolf ii, 1988, p. 165, under cat. no. 2.3 (as a workshop replica, based on photographs)
Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Aus Früchten Und Gemüse Gebildeter Männerkopf Im Profil
Original
Other WORKS AT AUCTION
