Allegory of Autumn

Bacchus, the god of wine, drives the chariot here, and autumn is the season of earth. The four seasons were first sold at auction in Amsterdam on 22 April 1699, a year after Herman van Swoll, the collector who ordered them, had died. The whole set went for 570 guilders. In the same sale Van Swoll's painting by Vermeer, the Allegory of Faith now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, fetched 400 guilders on its own, the highest price recorded for a Vermeer in the 17th century. After that the seasons kept changing hands as a group. They were sold again in Amsterdam in 1718 and 1731, made 7,801 livres at a Paris sale in 1786, and in 1872 a dealer in London bought all four for 170 pounds. The set finally came apart at a Christie's sale in London in 1886.