Pomona Surprised by Vertumnus and Other Suitors from The Story of Vertumnus and Pomona

Textiles

1535-1540

After a design by an unidentified Flemish artist
Brussels

The young woman kneeling in the foreground, holding a branch with leaves and flowers, is Pomona, the Roman nymph of apples and orchards. The young man shown in profile to her immediate right is Vertumnus, the Proteus-like god who symbolized the passing of the seasons. The tapestry is part of a Story of Vertumnus and Pomona suite that is based on the mythological tale Ovid described in the Metamorphoses. According to the story, Vertumnus was in love with the beautiful Pomona, who was devoted to gardening and uninterested in courtship. He tried to woo her, at first in vain, but eventually won her heart. The tapestry is the first scene of five and depicts Pomona’s disinterest in all the various suitors shown. The series to which this piece belongs is the earliest surviving narrative ensemble illustrating the entirety of Ovid’s tale.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Textiles

Title: Pomona Surprised by Vertumnus and Other Suitors from The Story of Vertumnus and Pomona, Pomona Surprised by Vertumnus and Other Suitors
Places: Flanders (Object made in:), Brussels (Object made in:)
Date: Made 1535-1540
Medium: Wool and silk, slit and double interlocking tapestry weave Warp: Count: 7 warps per cm; wool: S-ply of three Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.8–1.0 mm Weft: Count: varies from 18 to 37 wefts per cm; wool: S-ply of two Z-spun elements; pairs of single Z-spun elements; diameters: 0.4–1.4 mm; silk: S-ply of two Z-twisted elements; diameters: 0.4–1.0 mm
Inscriptions: Hanc satyri et panes (et) invenis Silenus ama(ve)runt / Omnes Vertumnus vincit amore deos (She was loved by satyrs, fauns, and the youthful Silenus, but Vertumnus loved her best of all)
Dimensions: 493.9 × 430.3 cm (194 1/2 × 169 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Charles H. Worcester
Reference Number: 1940.86
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/58661/manifest.json

H.-F. Keuller and A.-J. Wauters, Les tapisseries historiées à l’Exposition nationale belge de 1880 (F. Hayez, 1881), 17-18.
Meyric R. Rogers, “A Brussels Tapestry of the Mid-Sixteenth Century,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 34, 6 (Nov. 1940): 92.
“Art Throughout America/Chicago: Flemish Tapestry” Art News 39 (Jan. 4, 1941): 14 (ill.).
Marthe Crick-Kuntziger, “Note sur une Tenture inedite de l’Histoire de Phaéton,” Revue belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art 20, 1 (1951): 133-35.
Cecilia Paredes, “Des jardins de Venus aux jardins de Pomone: Note sur l’iconographie des décors des tapisseries de Vertumne et Pomone,” Revue belge d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art 68 (1999): 78, n. 19.
Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestry (Thames and Hudson, 1999), 113, 129.
Christa C. Mayer Thurman and Koenraad Brosens, “Flemish Tapestries in the Collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.” In Flemish Tapestry in European and American Collections: Studies in Honour of Guy Delmarcel, ed. Koenraad Brosens (2003): 173, 182, n. 9.
Koenraad Brosens, ed., Christa C. Mayer Thurman, gen. ed., European Tapestries in the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat., [exhibition: “The Divine Art: Four Centuries of European Tapestries in the Art Institute of Chicago”] (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2008) 94-102, cat. 11 (ill.).

Brussels, Exposition Nationale Belge, 1880.
Art Institute of Chicago, Regenstein Hall, The Divine Art: Four Centuries of European Tapestry, Nov. 1, 2008–Jan. 4, 2009.

Jacobo Luis Stuart Fitz-James (died 1881), 8th Duke of Berwick, 15th Duke of Alba de Tormes, Madrid, Spain; sold Hotel Drouot, Paris, Duke of Berwick and Alba sale, April 7-20, 1877, lot 36 (as “Le Primtemps [sic]”; The rest of the suite was lots 32-35; the group was called “Sujets allégoriques ou saisons”). Possibly Baron Frédéric Emile D’Erlanger (d. 1894), Paris, by 1880 (with three other pieces from the suite). French and Company, New York, by 1926; sold to William Randolph Hearst (died 1951), Mar. 26, 1926; ownership transferred to International Studio Art Corporation (Hearst holding company); sold to the Art Institute, 1940.

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Pomona Surprised by Vertumnus and Other Suitors from The Story of Vertumnus and Pomona

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