Study of a Figure in a Niche (Saint Ambrose; recto); Architectural Studies: Four Alternative Designs for Fictive Niches and an Unrelated Design with Garlands (verso), ca. 1560-67

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593) was an Italian painter famous for his extravagant paintings of human faces in the form of compositions of fruit and vegetables, often with portrait likenesses. The forgotten Renaissance artist was proclaimed in the twentieth century as a forerunner of Surrealism. This suggests that the artist was well ahead of his time and deserves to be known not only by specialists but also by the general public.