Vertumnus

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Vertumnus and Pomona by Luca Giordano (1682–1683), private collection

In Roman mythology, Vertumnus (Vortumnus, Vertimnus) was the god of seasons, change^[1] and plant growth, as well as gardens and fruit trees. He could change his form at will; using this power, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, he tricked Pomona into talking to him by disguising himself as an old woman and gaining entry to her orchard, then eventually convincing her into marrying him. He often tricked maidens into coming to see his home, the garden of Eden, and trapping them there to be his for all eternity.

The name Vortumnus appears to derive from Etruscan Voltumna. It was likely then further contaminated by a pre-existing Latin word vertēre meaning "to change", hence the alternative form, Vertumnus.

Ovid recalled a time (Fasti, vi, June 9 "Vestalia") when the Roman forum was still a reedy swamp, when

That god, Vertumnus, whose name fits many forms,

Wasn’t yet so-called from damning back the river (averso amne).

Vertumnus' cult arrived in Rome around 300 BC and a temple to him was constructed on the Aventine Hill in 264 BC. A statue of him was placed at the Vicus Tuscus. His festival was the Vertumnalia on August 13.

The subject Vertumnus and Pomona appealed to European painters of the 16th through the 18th century for its opportunity to contrast young fresh female beauty with an aged crone, with a wholly disguised erotic subtext. The subject was even woven into tapestry in series with the generic theme Loves of the Gods, of which the mid-sixteenth century Brussels hanging at Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, woven to cartoons attributed to Jan Vermeyen, must be among the earliest. François Boucher provided designs for the tapestry-weaver Maurice Jacques at the Gobelins Tapestry Manufacture for a series that included Vertumnus and Pomona (1775 - 1778), and, extending the theme of erotic disguise, Jupiter wooing Callisto in the guise of Diana: an example is at the J. Paul Getty Museum.