Object Image

Summer is represented here as Ceres, goddess of agriculture, reclining in front of her attribute, a row of wheat stalks. The work is one of three known paintings from a cycle by Jacopo Tintoretto depicting the personifications of the four Seasons. Spring and Autumn are housed in other collections; there is no trace of Winter. All three of the surviving Seasons feature powerful figures combined with a decorative elegance that is especially prominent in Summer, in the undulating line of stalks of grain silhouetted against the sky, the lacy grape leaves and clustered grapes, and the exquisitely rendered birds.

Tintoretto’s Seasons were created to surround a central ceiling painting in the Casa Ba...

c. 1546/1548
Oil on canvas
105.7 x 193.0cm
1961.9.90
Image and text © National Gallery of Art, 2020

Where you'll find this

National Gallery of Art
Permanent collection