The Four Seasons: Autumn (1635): Art, History and Details

The Four Seasons: Autumn (1635) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Abraham Bosse (French, 1602–1676).

The work and its context

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

Depictions of the four seasons in the early modern period often emphasized timeless agrarian seasonal activities. In this image of autumn, however, Abraham Bosse portrayed instead a group of middle-class people in contemporary costume. The men and women appear not as laborers bringing in the crops, but as drinkers sampling the harvest. As urban dwellers invading a rural space, they make a mess of it, overturning the table, drawing the sword, and tussling in the shadows—all indicators of taking too much liberty with the “new wine” (du vin nouveau).

Object facts

• Title: The Four Seasons: Autumn
• Date: 1635
• Creator attribution: Abraham Bosse (French, 1602–1676)
• Culture: France
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving and etching
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.1 x 32 cm (10 1/4 x 12 5/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1924.830.3

A detail from the museum

Like the figures in this composition, Bosse himself had little interest in following the rules. In 1661, he was expelled from the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture due to his controversial teachings.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Peters, Emily J. “In Vino Veritas: Wine's Truths and Consequences on Display.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2025): 10-11.

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.