Winter at The Louvre, Paris

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The personification of seasons was a timeless theme for sculptors post Renaissance. Pierre Le Gros the Elder (1629 – 11 May 1714) was a renowned French sculptor whose output dominated the decoration of Versailles' château and gardens, often working to designs provided by Charles Le Brun (as seen in L'Eau, or Water). He collaborated closely with other sculptors of Bâtiments du Roi. His son, Pierre Le Gros the Younger, worked almost exclusively in Rome. Born at Chartres, the elder Le Gros was a pupil of Jacques Sarrazin before being received into the Académie in 1666. He completed numerous commissions for Versailles, including statues in bronze and marble, bas-reliefs, and fountains. At Versailles, his bronze fountain sculpture of a cupid, "Genius of Royal Power," seated on an eagle that ejected water, was engraved by Jean le Pautre (his father-in-law) in the 1670s as part of a series of images promoting Baroque Classicism throughout Europe. Another notable fountain sculpture for Versailles, Cherubs Playing with a Lyre, created between 1672 and 1673, was removed from Versailles in the mid-eighteenth century and is now on display at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. The Bâtiments du Roi's projects were distinctly cooperative affairs. A notable example is the Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, designed by Pierre Bullet and carried out between 1672 and 1674. The team of sculptors providing bas-reliefs for the spandrels of the monumental rusticated triumphal arch included Gaspard Marsy, Pierre Legros, Etienne Le Hongre, and Martin Desjardins, along with their assistants. Le Gros' contribution was The Capture of Limburg, 1675, a seated woman by a supine lion, which was dictated to him and had a predetermined composition. His herms representing the Four Seasons are preserved in the Louvre Museum.