Perino del Vaga, Vertumnus and Pomona, red chalk, outlines finely drawn in ink and incised, 6 7/8 x 5 3/8 in. The British Museum, London
Selected Works
Profane Love
Vertumnus and Pomona
Ovid recounts the tale of Vertumnus, the God of seasons, gardens, and fruit trees, and his love for Pomona, goddess of tree-borne fruit, who faithfully tended the plants in her walled garden, forbidding all men to enter. Vertumnus visited her in a number of disguises, eventually as an old woman who spoke of love, though Pomona remained unmoved. Revealing his true form, he was "ready to force her will, but no force was necessary, and the nymph, smitten by the beauty of the god, felt an answering passion." Taking the graceful pose of Michelangelo's Libyan Sibyl in the Sistine Chapel, Pomona awards Vertumnus one of her sacred apples. Watching approvingly at the left is an animated statue of Priapus, the lewd fertility god and guardian of gardens, who extends a victor's palm. This drawing, one of Perino del Vaga's most beautiful, was engraved by Gian Giacomo Caraglio, although it may have been conceived as an independent invention and only later used as a model for a print.
