The subject of Vertumnus and Pomona is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses and was clearly a favorite of Bloemaert's, for it was one that he treated on numerous occasions and in a wide variety of media - including a print of 1605,¹ four paintings,² and at least six drawings,³ one of which is a design for the aforementioned print, and now housed in the collection of the Kunsthalle, Bremen.⁴

The present sheet belongs to a particularly distinctive group of three drawings, published by Bolten (op. cit.) in 2007, all of which depict the deceptive Vertumnus making amorous advances on Pomona in the somewhat unorthodox guise of an elderly woman. All three works are executed in a distinctive combination of pen and brown ink and wash, with touches of white heightening and show the fascinating way in which Bloemaert has allowed the subject to evolve through his drawings, with subtle differences in the tilt of a head or positioning of a hand, making all the difference as to how we, the viewer, interpret the narrative.

The verso of the present sheet, which depicts a reclining figure and a study of a hand playing a musical instrument, seems unrelated to the subject of the recto, but through the pose of the reclining figure, lying at the base of a tree is, in its own way, totally typical of Bloemaert, who frequently employed figures of this sort throughout his work.

^1. M. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and His Sons, Ghent 1993, vol. II, fig. 151
^2. Ibid., figs. 109, 187 and 413 and sale, New York, Sotheby's, 24 January 2008, lot 231
^3. Bolten, op.cit., pp. 185-188, nos. 525-528
^4. Ibid., p. 185-186, no. 525