Vertumnus and Pomona (Ovid, Metamorphoses: 623-771)

The support is a copper plate. The ground layer is not visible. The foliage and drapery were painted quite thickly and are relief-like. Pentimenti reveal that Pomona’s left arm was originally thinner and that changes were made in the potted plant on the far left.

Fair. The thinly applied areas are moderately abraded and the varnish has discoloured somewhat.

...; ? sale, Willem Smits (†) et al., The Hague (H.J. Doorschoot), 18 May 1785, no. 175, as Lastman (‘Pomona en Vertumnus in een Tuin bezigt, uitvoerig geschildert [...]; op koper, hoog 7. breet 91/2 duim [18.3 x 24.8 cm]’);...; sale, E.W. Johnson (†) (Chichester), London (Christie’s), 16 November 1874, no. 506,¹¹The lot number is inscribed on the reverse of the copper plate. to Atkins;...; collection Daan H. Cevat, St Peter Port, Guernsey, 1967;²²Leiden 1968, p. 31, no. 48. by whom donated to the museum, 1977; on loan to the Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, since 2004

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4699

Credit line: Gift of D.H. Cevat, Guernsey

Ovid’s story of how Vertumnus disguised himself as an old woman in order to persuade the wood nymph Pomona to accept his advances was the most frequently depicted mythological subject in the northern Netherlands in the 17th century.⁴⁴Sluijter 1991, p. 386. The Pre-Rembrandtists, however, did not favour the subject and Tengnagel’s painting is the only extant rendering of it from this group of artists. Tengnagel’s painting itself is significantly different from those made of the theme only a few years earlier by such Mannerist artists as Abraham Bloemaert and Hendrick Goltzius.⁵⁵An early painted example by Bloemaert is in a private collection; illustrated in Sluijter 2000, p. 383, fig. 86. Goltzius painted the subject in 1613 (SK-A-2217) and again in 1615 (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum); illustrated in Sluijter 2000, p. 384, fig. 87, p. 385, fig. 88, respectively. While on a much smaller scale, Tengnagel’s painting stands out especially for the way in which the theme is handled. Instead of showing Pomona as a voluptuous nude as Bloemaert and Goltzius had done, Tengnagel depicted her fully clothed as was the tradition in 16th-century print illustrations of the Metamorphoses. Even unlike the illustrated Metamorphoses, however, Tengnagel’s Pomona is a sturdy, rather plain-looking woman, seated on a wheelbarrow. She holds the sickle as in Ovid’s tale, and other gardening implements (shovel, rake, sieve and watering-can) have been placed prominently in the foreground.

According to Sluijter, Tengnagel’s aim in this painting was to bring Pomona’s story closer to the experiential realm of the contemporary viewer, thereby stressing its moral, namely that a maiden must reserve her virginity for the right suitor, and when he comes along she must give herself to him and not squander her opportunity to marry and bear children⁶⁶Sluijter 1986, pp. 61, 258; Sluijter 1991, p. 392; Sluijter 2000, pp. 44, 150. Sluijter argues that it was for this reason Tengnagel chose not to show Pomona as a nude, which would have been a clear reference to classical antiquity. Sluijter’s argument cannot be accepted; despite the fact that Pomona is fully clothed, a 17th-century viewer would not have mistaken her dress, nor that worn by Vertumnus, as contemporary costume. The type of dress worn by Pomona, including her ‘Roman’ sandals, are typically found in paintings with a pastoral theme, such as those by Pieter Lastman.⁷⁷For example, Landscape with Pastoral Figures, c. 1612, New York, private collection; illustrated in Amsterdam 1991a, p. 89. Vertumnus’ robes in Tengnagel’s painting, moreover, are not much different from those worn by Vertumnus in Goltzius and Bloemaert’s renderings of the theme, and would have been considered historical by 17th-century viewers.

It is not only the fact that Pomona is fully clothed, that distinguishes Tengnagel’s painting from Goltzius’s and Bloemaert’s depictions of the subject. Tengnagel’s tiny painting is filled to overflowing with objects that, while not being out of place in a southern European garden, are laden with symbolism. The quite natural motif of Pomona resting her foot on a stone, for example, has been interpreted as a symbol of her steadfast rejection of all would-be suitors. In a different context, Van Mander states that ‘a foot resting on a stone (...) signifies resolve’.⁸⁸As pointed out by Van Suchtelen in Amsterdam 1993, p. 580, who also illustrates a woodcut from a Latin edition of the Metamorphoses published in Leipzig in 1582 showing the same motif. The painting includes a great deal more ‘disguised symbolism’. The walled garden in Ovid’s story and the painting is an obvious symbol of Pomona’s virginity.⁹⁹See Sluijter 1986, p. 61; Sluijter 1991, p. 392; Van Suchtelen in Amsterdam 1993, p. 580; Sluijter 2000, p. 150. The broken pot in the left foreground is probably a symbol of the imminent loss of that virginity.¹⁰¹⁰On the symbolism of broken pots see Vinken 1958. The fountain and the peacock, which are not mentioned by Ovid, are symbols of fertility and marriage.¹¹¹¹See Vinken 1958. Another symbol of fertility is found in the form of the spring and summer zodiac signs on the hem of Pomona’s dress.¹²¹²Sluijter 1991, p. 392. While a 17th-century viewer would certainly not have mistaken this scene for everyday Dutch reality, part of the charm of Tengnagel’s painting may well have been the distinguishing of the symbolism inherent in the seemingly ordinary objects. Tengnagel, perhaps, clothed his Pomona so that she too would not seem out of place in this, on the surface, mundane classical garden. There is no basis for Sluijter’s argument that Tengnagel avoided nudity in order to make his painting more acceptable to an audience that, unfamiliar with international poetic and pictorial conventions, would have had a critical, possibly religiously intolerant view of the pagan myths.¹³¹³Sluijter 1991, p. 394.

It is possible that the painting was in a 1785 auction in The Hague, where it carried an attribution to Lastman.¹⁴¹⁴To account for the smaller dimensions given in the sale catalogue, Sluijter (1986, p. 400, note 61-I; 2000, p. 224, note 69) has suggested that the sight size was measured. Van Suchtelen (in Amsterdam 1993, p. 580, note 1) was hesitant in identifying Tengnagel’s painting with the one in the 1785 auction because she mistakenly believed that the present painting was not on copper. Sluijter (2000, p. 150) also refers to the painting as a panel. Indeed, the wayward twirls of the drapery, the treatment of the landscape, and the figure types are highly reminiscent of Lastman’s style. Lastman, too, often depicted conversation themes in which gestures play a primary role.

Jonathan Bikker, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 279.

Sluijter 1986, pp. 61, 62, 111, 257; Sluijter 1991; Van Suchtelen in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 580-81, no. 253; Sluijter 2000, pp. 44, 55, 70, 93, 150, 153

1992, p. 86, no. A 4699; 2007, no. 279

J. Bikker, 2007, 'Jan Tengnagel, Vertumnus and Pomona (Ovid, Metamorphoses: 623-771), 1617', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5562