The Four Seasons have been reunited after decades apart when the marble statues of Spring and Summer returned to the Royal Botanic Gardens to join Autumn and Winter on the Palace Gardens Steps.
The four figures representing the traditional European seasons are among the oldest surviving statues in the Gardens.
Botanic Gardens Trust Executive Director Dr Tim Entwisle, who has proposed that Sydney’s calendar include at least five seasons to relate to our climate rather than that of Europe, said, “It is wonderful to see our heritage returning to Gardens in all its beauty and romance. We treasure our European heritage even though it no longer binds us.”
The Four Seasons were arrived in shipment of statues from Italy in 1883 that are attributed to Charles Francis Summers (1857-1945), a successful Australian-born sculptor who moved to Italy as a child.
During the twentieth century, the figures of Spring and Summer, lost their heads and other calamities and were carted off to the Gardens “graveyard”. Their recent reconstructions and repairs, using white marble specially shipped from Italy, are the work of Polish-born sculptor and master mason Jacek Luszczyk who last year restored La Ballarina, another of the 1883 Italian statues.
Mr Luszczyk has sculpted a new head for Summer using a1890s photo to guide him, rejoined Summer’s lower legs to her body, and reconstructed her sickle and bouquet. He has returned Spring’s decapitated head to her shoulders and repaired her hands.
The restoration brings a smile of satisfaction to the sculptor’s face. “Summer looks well with her sister beside her. I believe it is very good for all of us to see heritage statues in the Gardens in good condition. When we are here with the stone and all the natural art of a garden -- the flowers and vegetation -- and they all work together, that gives us joy,” he said.
As in days gone by, the figures of Autumn and Winter will now stand sentinel at the bottom of the Palace Gardens Steps with Spring and Summer at the top.
Julian Bickersteth, Managing Director of International Conservation Services which is overseeing the restoration of the Gardens’ heritage statuary, said, “It’s pleasing to see these essential elements of the Gardens being restored to their rightful location with their various missing limbs reattached or recreated. We can truly understand the original concept of Charles Moore, the Director of the Gardens in the 1860s, to see statuary as an integral part of the design of the Gardens.”
All four Seasons have been given a deep clean and protective coating, as have other veteran Italians in the Palace Gardens such as the Boxers and the Little Sweep Boy who had gone green with algae.They are once again the striking white figures against dark green foliage that was such a popular image in Gardens postcards a century ago.
A fifth Season, a small marble Spring who stood in for her larger headless colleague on the Palace Garden Steps in recent years, has been cleaned and moved to the Spring Walk. Her new arm will be sculpted by Jacek Luszczyk in the coming months.
Dr Entwisle who has his eye on this statue for his extra ‘Sprinter’ season said, “We are delighted to have all five Seasons in the Gardens”.
The restoration and cleaning of the Gardens heritage statuary is undertaken through private donation.
The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain are home to over fifty statues that include classical copies, neo-classical monuments, romantic Victoriana, numerous lions, Australian historical figures and abstract contemporary works by Australians of Aboriginal, European and Asian descent.
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