Vertumnus and Pomona

This 1644 Vertumnus and Pomona at the Cincinnati Art Museum depicts the mythological tale of the shape-shifting god of seasons who transformed himself into multiple disguises to woo the nymph Pomona, goddess of fruit orchards, before finally winning her as himself. The story from Ovid's Metamorphoses was a popular subject for Flemish and Dutch painters for its combination of romantic disguise, garden setting, and the revelation of authentic identity beneath performance. Bol's version demonstrates his range beyond Dutch realism into the mythological painting that competed with Flemish practitioners like Rubens and van Dyck for aristocratic patronage. Cincinnati's holding documents American museum acquisition of Dutch Golden Age mythological paintings.

The mythological encounter is set within a garden landscape, Bol rendering the disguised god and the reluctant nymph with the warm palette and naturalistic figure painting of his Rembrandtesque early maturity.