Circle of Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, 
Dutch 1562-1638- 
Vertumnus and Pomona; 
oil on...

Circle of Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, 
Dutch 1562-1638- 

Vertumnus and Pomona; 

oil on canvas, 167.4 x 136.1 cm. 

Provenance: 
Formerly Private Collection, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where acquired by the present owner. 

Note: 
The story of Vertumnus and Pomona appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and like many of these stories it is a tale of shapeshifting and seduction. In this story, the God of change and seasons, Vertumnus, disguises himself as an old woman in order to gain access to the orchard of the wood nymph Pomona, who had previously refused him entry. Once inside the garden, Vertumnus seduces Pomona. The moment of their meeting in the orchard is captured in the picture presented here. 
After Ovid's Metamorphoses were first published in Dutch in 1552, the stories became a rich and popular source of material for painters in the Netherlands, as the subjects suited the increasing demand for secular pictures by the growing mercantile classes.
From the 1580s onwards, free from the rule of the Spanish Habsburg Government which still controlled much of the Southern Netherlands, the city of Haarlem became an important centre of artistic production in the Dutch Republic. The city became particularly well-known as the home of the 'Haarlem Mannerists' , a group of artists working in the late 16th-century Mannerist style, which had spread from Italy to the Netherlands through the work of travelling painters like Antwerp native Bartholomeus Spranger (1654-1611), as well as the Haarlem-based painter Hendrick Goltzius (1558 -1617), who travelled to Rome around 1590 and there acquired a deep admiration for the works of Michelangelo (1475-1564). The Italian master's 'forced' poses and defined musculature would exert a crucial influence of the work of Goltzius and his Haarlem circle.
Another influential member of the Haarlem Mannerist circle was Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, who first studied with Pieter Pietersz. (1540-1603) and later moved to Antwerp for a short time to study with Gillis Coignet (1542-1599). Van Haarlem became renowned for his mythological scenes, which, like the present picture, were often painted on very large canvases - a monumental scale which in earlier centuries would have been reserved for altarpieces.
The carefully modelled and fairly muscular figure of the nymph in particular recalls the works of Cornelis van Haarlem, and similar female figures appear in many of the artist's mythological pictures, including 'Pomona receiving the Harvest' (Rijksmuseum, SK-A-4015) and 'Paris and Oenone' (Sotheby's, 8 July 2015, lot 40), as well as the artist's two versions of 'Venus and Mars' (illustrated in P. J. J. van Thiel, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, 1999, cat nos. 266 and 276 respectively). In his portrayals of Venus and Mars, Van Haarlem has contrasted the pale and elongated female figure with a more robust, rugged-looking male counterpart. A similar device is used in the present picture, in which the pale, elongated nymph is sharply contrasted with the figure of Vertumnus, whose lined, leathery skin, masculine hands and hunched pose only serve to emphasise Pomona's elegance and translucent beauty. Meanwhile, the plump vegetables and twisting vines that surround the central figures (and which could possibly be the work of a second hand), are rendered with incredible realism and precision, heralding the advent of the Golden Age still life.