Hyems [Winter]

Hyems [Winter] shows the figures approaching old age; the male figure age 49 faces away from the viewer and the female figure (estimated age 42) faces to the side, stepping down into an open grave; both hold flasks, and the woman is emptying hers, labeled "melancholia" (black bile), onto the ground. In the background, there are buildings and human figures engaged in domestic tasks; one of the flanking trees is an olive or mistletoe and the other is dormant or dead; and a crane carries the title banner. The sun and new moon in the upper corners of the image do not have flaps. Across the image, the man shows posterior views of the vascular, muscular, and skeletal systems in four layers, with several smaller flaps; on the woman, visible surface muscles conceal the arterial and venous systems (male) on both sides of one layer. There is one circular element in the lower left corner, a map of the Americas adorned with an out-of-season tobacco plant above a diagram of the rectum; the lower right corner of the image shows a cross-section of the grave below the woman's foot, with scattered individual bones. In this print, images from elsewhere in the print are printed on the backs of several of the flaps.

These prints are particularly elaborate examples of a type of anatomical illustration utilizing superimposed paper flaps, known as "fugitive sheets," which became popular in Europe beginning in the first half of the 16th century. The anatomical details show the illustrations were modeled after earlier examples by German anatomist Johann Remmelin (1583-1632), originally published in the 1610s.

Collective English title "The four seasons" supplied from later containers and reference sources; also sometimes referred to as "The four seasons of human life," "The four seasons of humanity," "The four seasons of man"; Latin titles of individual prints supplied from engraved text prominently featured below the calendrical arches in the images.

Artist(s) and/or engraver(s) unknown. "Hyems" is sometimes considered the work of a different artist. At least one scholar suggests that the design of the plates might be attributed to the English Paracelsian physician Robert Fludd (1574-1637) (See: The ingenious machine of nature).

Place of origin unknown; scholarship suggests Germany or Flanders, or possibly England.

Publisher unknown; scholarly examination of the images suggests wear on the plates consistent with the printing of multiple copies (See: The four seasons of human life, page 17).

Range of dates conjectured based on a fool's cap watermark from a particular batch of French paper that was used throughout Europe, first appearing around 1680 and remaining in use until about 1710. Sources used for anatomical illustrations and quoted text were mostly published before the 1640s. (See: The four seasons of human life, pages 16-17)

Most of the engraved text is sourced from Hippocrates, Galen, and other classical and humanistic authors, either as quotations or allusions (for full transcriptions as well as English translations, see: The four seasons of human life, chapter 2).

The presence of single letters in the Latin or Greek alphabet within some of the anatomical illustrations suggests that an accompanying key text might have existed at one time.

Possibly originally issued with the sheets bound, as was the case with other groups of anatomical sheets.

Engraved text in Latin, with some Greek.