The Four Seasons (1850): Art, History and Details

The Four Seasons (1850) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Henry Picou (French, 1824–1895); Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904); Gustave Rodolphe Boulanger (French, 1824–1888); Jean-Louis Hamon (French, 1821–1874).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The artists who painted this work belonged to a group called the Néo-Grecs (New Greeks). They concentrated on depicting scenes of daily life in ancient Greece and Rome—often with an erotic slant. Here, relying on a popular Greco-Roman theme, the four works represent the seasons and their associated activities: the pursuit of love in spring; bathing in summer; harvesting grapes in fall; and a funerary ritual in winter. The decorative gold, black, and red borders also enhance the classical aspect of the work by recalling the painted wall decorations of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The artists painted this work for their friend, French actor Edmond Got (1822–1901). They likely presented this picture to him in commemoration of his election to the Comédie- Francaise acting company and as a memento of their friendship.

Object facts

• Title: The Four Seasons
• Date: 1850
• Creator attribution: Henry Picou (French, 1824–1895); Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904); Gustave Rodolphe Boulanger (French, 1824–1888); Jean-Louis Hamon (French, 1821–1874)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 75 x 66.5 x 7 cm (29 1/2 x 26 3/16 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 56.3 x 46.5 cm (22 3/16 x 18 5/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1980.263

Collection credit

Bequest of Noah L. Butkin

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1980.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 68, no. 6 (June 1981): 163–219.
• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.
• Ackerman, Gerald M. Jean-Léon Gérôme: monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour. Courbevoie: ACR, 2000.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.