Antwerp School, 17th Century

All four panels are uncradled and have a central horizontal join; all have a degree of thinness throughout the brown pigments. There is a small amount of paint loss along the join at far left side of Winter. Otherwise the paint surface is well retained and colors remain strong. Examination under ultraviolet shows small scattered retouches in the sky of all four pictures, with a larger area in the upper right sky of Summer and retouching along a crack (about 6 inches long) at upper left corner of Spring. All have some scattered retouches on the figures, animals and landscape areas. These restorations have been well applied and paintings can be hung in their present state. In black wood frames.
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This series of panels was painted after engravings by Johannes (1550-1600) and Raphael (1560/61-1628 or 1632) Sadeler, after original compositions of the Four Seasons by Jacopo Bassano. The prints were probably made by the Sadelers during their visit to Venice, and were subsequently spread throughout Europe, proving quite popular among artists throughout the continent. Each composition depicts specific agricultural work farmers engaged in during the seasons. These colorful paintings are characteristic of the Antwerp school and were certainly executed by a young artist influenced by both Bassano and the Flemish artist Daniel Vinckboons. The reverse of the panel bears the marks of Guilliam Gabron (1609-1662), one of the most productive panel makers during the first half of the seventeenth century in Antwerp.  
Though there is disagreement among scholars as to whether an autograph original set by Jacopo survives, a complete set of the series which is now generally given to Francesco hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.¹

Dr. Jorgen Wadum, technical curator of the Mauritshuis in The Hague has suggested a dating to after 1630, based on the Gabron markings.

1.  See B. Aikema, Jacopo Bassano and his Public, Princeton 1996, p. 131-147.