About the Artist

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c. 1527 Milan-1593 Milan) was trained as an artist in his father's workshop, where he made stained-glass windows, tapestries and frescoes for churches. From 1562 to 1587 he worked as a court painter in Prague, where his tasks included portrait painting as well as the design of costumes and decorations. Arcimboldo developed an original naturalistic-Mannerist style in his imaginative portraits and allegories. He created supernatural heads and figures as if they were still life, making collages out of fruit, plants, animals and even man-made objects combined in fanciful ways. His art can be understood as a reaction to the end of the Renaissance and its new, scientific understanding of nature. The artist's works include The Librarian, c. 1565, Castle, Skokloster (Uppsala); The Fire, 1566, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and King Herod, Collezione Cote Cardazzo, Venice.