The Four Seasons: Winter: Putti sheltering by a Fire (after Edmé Bouchardon)

French School. Oil painting (en cama?eu/cirage) on canvas (oval), The Four Seasons: Winter: Putti sheltering by a Fire (after Edmé Bouchardon), French School 19th-20th century. One of a set of four. These illusionistic paintings are adaptations of the reliefs carved on the Fontaine de Grenelle (Fontaine des Quatre-Saisons) in Paris by Jaques-Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762), erected in 1739. Winter represented by four full-length naked putti and a dog. The putto on the left, is standing, body in profile, turned and gazing at the spectator, the putto on the far right is kneeling, and turned to the left, trying to erect a tented cloth, with both arms raised over the two remaining putto and a dog who are sheltering beneath the tent. the righ-hand putto of the two sheltering can only be seen by his face, the other on the left, has a long pipe which is is blowing to help keep a fire alight on the left foreground. A dog, with its front paws crossed, sits between the putti on the far right and the one sheltering next to him. The dog looks up at the putto blowing the pipe. Background dominated by a large barren tree centre. Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)