Is Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Art Public Domain? Faces, Seasons and Versions

Short answer: The two Arcimboldo reproductions shown here have institutional open designations: an NGA image under CC0 and a Nationalmuseum image marked public domain. Arcimboldo’s ordinary EU/UK artist term has long elapsed. This does not clear every photograph, modern adaptation or later-discovered work; independent U.S. publication histories remain unresolved in this guide.

A fruit face may look easy to recognise, but identifying the painting takes more care. Arcimboldo repeated subjects, made different series and inspired copies. “Summer by Arcimboldo” is not yet a precise image description. The museum, date and version determine which picture you are actually looking at.

A face and its ingredients

Arcimboldo worked at the Habsburg court in the sixteenth century. His composite heads use fruit, flowers, animals or manufactured objects to build recognisable human features. Seen from a distance, a head emerges; closer up, the ingredients reassert themselves. Neither reading quite cancels the other.

The effect is more structured than a random pile. Objects must perform two jobs at once: remain recognisable and occupy a plausible place in a face. A branch becomes a nose, a page becomes part of a collar, a fruit becomes a cheek. The point where those readings meet is where much of the humour sits.

These were also courtly pictures. The Kunsthistorisches Museum’s account of the Seasons and Elements explains their connections with imperial power and the cycles of nature. Their wit belongs to a particular world of patrons and learned entertainments, not simply to a modern taste for surreal images.

Four seasons in one head

The opening image is Four Seasons in One Head, dated about 1590 by the National Gallery of Art. It is one painting combining the seasons, not a collage we have made from four separate pictures.

The tree trunk gives the face an aged, uneven surface. Knots and cut branches behave like features, while the eye and mouth sit in darkness. The head does not dissolve into a cheerful basket of fruit: much of it remains rough, woody and rather uncomfortable to look at.

Now follow the living things around it. Grapes cluster at the left; fruit and ivy rise at the right; cherries hang beside the ear. Flowers appear across the chest, and grain follows the shoulders. Fresh growth gathers around a body that looks old. That tension makes the picture more than an exercise in spotting vegetables.

The NGA notes a description in Gregorio Comanini’s Il Figino, published in 1591, and identifies the painting as a late work. It also records the picture’s modern rediscovery and its first public presentation in the 2007 retrospective. Those are different kinds of evidence. A sixteenth-century description is not automatically proof that an authorised reproduction of the painting was distributed then.

The dark background is important. It lets the small bright forms emerge without filling every gap. A heavily brightened file can flatten the contrast, making the head look like a uniformly lit arrangement rather than a face partly concealed in shadow.

The lawyer and the books

The first impression is a formal portrait: cap, gown, fur collar. Then the face becomes difficult to keep human. The pale forms are birds and fish; the white pieces below the chin are papers rather than a conventional ruff. Books occupy the lower body.

The objects help describe a profession as well as a face. Pages and volumes make learning visible, while the animal features interrupt the dignity of official dress. It is tempting to turn this immediately into a fixed story about a corrupt lawyer. The image does not establish that story by itself.

Nationalmuseum’s title keeps the sitter’s identification cautious: possibly Ulrich Zasius. Keep the “possibly”. A confident filename or a shop description is not stronger evidence than the institution’s qualified attribution of the sitter.

This reproduction came to Commons through Nationalmuseum’s partnership with Wikimedia Sverige. Its public-domain notice includes the photograph, credited to Hans Thorwid. That exact provenance matters more than a generic “free Arcimboldo image” label attached to an unrelated scan.

Repeated seasons, different paintings

The 1563 Summer and Winter in Vienna are not the same objects as the four paintings dated 1573 in the Louvre. The Louvre’s record for Summer distinguishes its canvas support from the earlier Vienna paintings on wood and connects the later series with a diplomatic gift to the Elector of Saxony.

That distinction changes what you should compare. Look at the support, inscriptions and emblems, not only the general arrangement of fruit. A date copied from another Summer can attach the wrong history to an otherwise recognisable image.

Restoration also changes the files available online. The Louvre’s 2024 account explains work on its four Seasons. Earlier photographs with decorative borders and newer photographs should not be silently presented as interchangeable records of an untouched original state. Record which reproduction you use.

Twelve objects, not one template

The two illustrated files are selected examples. The remaining ten entries are research links with no reviewed local display image. A shared subject does not merge the objects, and an “attributed to” label must remain visible.

Object or version	Date	Institutional record
Four Seasons in One Head	c. 1590	NGA 2010.77.1
The Lawyer, possibly Ulrich Zasius	1566	Nationalmuseum NMGrh 1227
Summer, Vienna version	1563	KHM GG 1589, institutional series account
Winter, Vienna version	1563	KHM GG 1590, institutional series account
Fire	1566	KHM GG 1585
Water	1566	KHM GG 1586, institutional series account
Spring, Louvre version	1573	Louvre RF 1964 30
Summer, Louvre version	1573	Louvre RF 1964 31
Autumn, Louvre version	1573	Louvre RF 1964 32
Winter, Louvre version	1573	Louvre RF 1964 33
Vertumnus	Late sixteenth century	Skokloster’s object account
Portrait of an Archduchess, possibly Margaret; attributed to Arcimboldo	c. 1563	KHM GG 4509

Old painting, current file

Arcimboldo died in 1593. The ordinary EU and UK artist terms have long elapsed. That is a bounded term conclusion, not permission to copy every modern book page, creative photograph or Arcimboldo-inspired illustration.

For the United States, the ordinary publication term has elapsed for works published through 1930. But creation, a written mention and exhibition are not interchangeable with publication. Copyright Office guidance also explains a possible term through 2047 for certain older, previously unpublished works first published between 1978 and 2002. This guide does not independently establish the publication chains of the twelve objects; it reports the selected providers’ image designations.

The NGA open-access policy and the exact Commons-hosted NGA file support the opening image. Nationalmuseum’s institutional release supports the second. CC0 and the Public Domain Mark are different tools; neither implies museum endorsement of a product. KHM’s reproduction-request conditions and the Louvre’s modern photographic credits are not replaced by those two other institutions’ policies.

How to keep the joke visible

Choose a file that retains the full head and the objects below it. A face-only crop can discard the books or flowers that explain the subject. Save the collection title and accession alongside the image, and keep uncertain identities uncertain. Arcimboldo rewards a second look; a good reproduction should leave enough detail—and enough darkness—for that second look to happen.