Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Pomona.
The gallery
Vertumnus and Pomona
Jacopo Pontormo, 1519–1521
Pontormo's orchard goddess at Poggio a Caiano — Pomona as Renaissance abundance under the Medici villa vault.
Vertumnus and Pomona
Francesco Melzi, c. 1518–1522
Melzi's Berlin panel shows Vertumnus in crone disguise wooing Pomona among fruit and foliage — Leonardo's pupil turning Ovid's orchard courtship into Lombard grace. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Vertumnus and Pomona
Peter Paul Rubens, 1636
Rubens' oil for the Torre de la Parada cycle stages the god's final unveiling: Vertumnus sheds the old-woman mask before Pomona. Flemish abundance for the Roman fruit-tree goddess.
Landscape with Vertumnus and Pomona
Abraham Bloemaert, c. 1620
Bloemaert nests the orchard courtship in a Dutch world landscape — Pomona listening as the disguised Vertumnus persuades. Yale University Art Gallery.
Vertumnus and Pomona
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 1669
Eeckhout, Rembrandt's pupil, paints Pomona half-turned toward the god's disguise — soft Dutch light on Ovid's autumn romance. Google Art Project scan of the orchard pair.