Vertumnus and Pomona

François Boucher

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Boucher depicts here a well-known story from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit, was so devoted to her orchards that she took no notice of suitors. The god Vertumnus transformed himself into the form of a ragged old woman to gain her confidence. Boucher was fond of the subject and had already portrayed it on several occasions, including an overdoor for the royal Château de la Muette in 1749, a design for the Beauvais tapestry manufactory in 1757, and within an oval medallion for the Gobelins tapestries woven beginning in 1764 for Croome Court. In his virtuouso manner of handling the chalk, Boucher is here akin to Jean-Honoré Fragonard, his most famous student.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art