Signed (bottom right): Lajoüe

Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, p. 119, ill., notes that this overdoor by La Joue was probably part of a series of the four seasons; observes that it is typical of the artist's second manner, when he was influenced by Boucher, as seen particularly in the figures and the arabesque treatment of architecture and trees.

J.-C. Lemagny in Kindlers Malerei Lexikon. 4, Zürich, 1967, p. 23.

Marianne Roland Michel. Letter to Mary Ann Harris. December 10, 1975, finds the statue rather close to one in an over-door in the "Botanique" made for the duc de Picquigny in about 1735, and suggests that this might help in dating our picture.

Marianne Roland Michel. Lajoüe et l'art rocaille. Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1984, pp. 192, 327, no. P. 30, fig. 71, as "Winter," from about 1740; notes that it is probably from a series of the seasons which was never completed or from which the other panels are missing; points out that the marble group of the veiled nude and the putto, the latter influenced by Boucher, may similarly be found in a painting of about 1738 belonging to the Fabius gallery, Paris; both our picture and the latter are based on a print by Gillot called "Le Grand Hiver de l'année MDCCIX" and can be found as well in the "Fontaine glacée," engraved by Guélard in 1736 (G. 61), and in a little sketch of a fountain (P. 167); rejects Sterling's [Ref. 1955] description of our painting as typical of La Joue's "second manner," as the influences on the artist of Boucher and Watteau were "parallel, not consecutive".