The Cook

Arcimboldo spent these years as court painter to the Habsburg emperors, in Vienna and then Prague, where a clever visual joke was prized entertainment. He built a whole style from a single idea: portraits assembled out of ordinary objects. This panel is one of his tricks. Seen one way it is a plain platter of roasted meats, a suckling pig and a trussed bird with a slice of lemon on a metal dish. Turn it upside down and the meal becomes a face, the dish now a broad helmet, the little bird a lumpy nose, a twist of crackling for hair. The court would have passed the panel hand to hand and flipped it, because the flipping was the whole point.