Although Giuseppe Arcimboldo was extremely famous during his lifetime, he was soon forgotten after his death. We do not know why people ever lost interest in his art. Perhaps he was misunderstood by the generations that followed. The interest to his abstruse and fantastic pictures, of which we only have a very few originals, nowadays, revived only at the end of the 19th century. Apart from the fantastic pictures, he probably painted quite a few more traditional ones. But many of these, too, seem to have disappeared. Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born into the family of a painter for the Milan Cathedral in 1527. Other spellings of his name include Josephus, Joseph or Josepho Arcimboldi or Arcimboldus. It is uncertain which version is the correct one, because the painter used all of them to sign his works. Many art historians agreed to use the variant of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
c. 1566. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Basle, Switzerland.
1566. Oil on wood. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
c.1570. Oil on wood. Private collection, Vienna, Austria.
1566. Oil on wood. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
c.1566. Oil on canvas. Skoklosters Slott, Balsta, Sweden.
1566. Oil on canvas. Statens Konstsamlingar, Gripsholm Slott, Stockholm, Sweden.
c.1570. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Stockholm, Sweden. Read Note.
1573. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.
1573. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.
1573. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.
1573. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.
c.1575. Blue pen-and-wash drawing. Narodni Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
1578. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Basle, Switzerland. Read Note.
Oil on wood. Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Cremona, Italy. Read Note.
1590-1591. Oil on wood. Skoklosters Slott, Balsta, Sweden. Read Note.
c.1591. Oil on wood. Private collection, Paris, France. Read Note.
Arcimboldo by Federico Zeri. NDE Publishing, 2001.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo 1527-1593 (Basic Art Series) by Giuseppe Arcimboldi, Werner Kriegeskorte. TASCHEN America Llc, 1994.
The Portrait of Eccentricity: Arcimboldo and the Mannerist Grotesque by Giancarlo Maiorino. Pennsylvania State Univ Pr, 1991.
Hello, Fruit Face!: The Paintings of Guiseppe Arcimboldo (Adventures in Art) by Claudia Strand. Prestel, 1999.