Allegory of Spring

In 1598, five years after Giuseppe Arcimboldo's death in Milan, this head of Spring and its companion seasons were already on record in Munich, the seat of the dukes of Bavaria. The city then held one of the earliest princely collections of rarities north of the Alps, a cabinet set up by Duke Albrecht V in the 1560s, where paintings shared space with shells, clocks and natural curiosities. In this picture a young face is made entirely of the early year. Irises, bindweed, roses, daisies and strawberries crowd in among fresh leaves, every one of them a plant that blooms only briefly. The choice keeps the season short, reaching at most into the first weeks of summer.