ウェルトゥムヌスに扮したルドルフ2世

Arcimboldo made this in 1591 for Rudolf the Second, the Holy Roman Emperor, who ran his court in Prague as a private laboratory of astronomers, alchemists and collectors of curiosities. The emperor's face is entirely built from produce. A pear for the nose, apple and peach cheeks, a beard of chestnuts and wheat, eyes made of berries. He is dressed up as Vertumnus, the Roman god of the seasons and of change, so that every fruit of every season answers to a single ruler. One detail carries real weight. The ear of corn is a New World crop, and putting it on the emperor's own face was a quiet way of saying his reach ran to the far side of the earth. In 1648 Swedish troops sacked Prague and carried the painting off, which is how it ended up in a castle north of Stockholm.