Vertumnus and Pomona

This beautifully preserved copper panel is a fine example of Abraham Govaerts’s landscape painting. Dated 1620, the painting marks a moment when Govaerts began to move away from the traditional coloristic techniques used to create atmosphere—methods employed by Gillis van Coninxloo and Joos de Momper I—in favor of the pure and brilliant pigments characteristic of Jan Brueghel the Elder. Here, Govaerts achieves a sense of spatial depth through the careful arrangement of still-life elements and landscape features: the vegetable carts at left and the foliage and flowers at right form coulisses, framing a sharply rendered one-point perspective that guides the viewer’s eye along the garden path, disappearing beyond a distant trellis. The delicate depiction of flowers, vegetables, and fruits reveals Brueghel’s influence on Govaerts, who emulated his style in both independent and collaborative works with Frans Francken II.

At the center of the scene, Vertumnus, the god of the seasons, appears in the guise of an old woman as he meets Pomona, the goddess of gardens and orchards (Ovid, Metamorphoses 14:623–700). Vertumnus, persistent in his pursuit of Pomona’s love, had previously disguised himself as a farmer, a soldier, and a fisherman, all to no avail. In his final attempt, he approaches her as an old woman and uses the allegory of the grapevine supported by the elm tree to persuade her that, like the vine, she too requires the support provided by marriage. Along the right edge of the panel, Govaerts depicts a grapevine entwined around a tree, elegantly referencing Vertumnus’s allegory.