Allegory of Winter - Jacques de Lajoue the Younger

Jacques de La Joue the Younger

Oil on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

A shivering female figure huddles beneath bare, gnarled trees while a pale winter sun glows faintly through misty clouds, her companion cherub clutching icicle-draped reeds beside a frost-covered rocaille shell. Painted in the delicate Rococo manner, the scene uses soft grisaille-like tones and swirling, asymmetrical ornament to evoke the cold stillness of the season rather than its harshness. Lajoue, celebrated for his fantastical architectural capriccios and decorative panels for Parisian hôtels, brings his signature theatrical flourish to this allegorical subject, blending classical personification with charming decorative artifice. This arch-topped panel would have once graced an elegant interior, and its moody, atmospheric palette lends a quietly dramatic, old-world elegance to any room today.