18C Women Around the World

Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.

17C Portraits of Goddess Pomona (Women & Plants, Again...)

Vertumnus & Pomona by Circle Pieter de Grebber or Pieter Fransz de Grebber (c.1600–1652/3) a Dutch Golden Age painter.

Pomona was the beautiful goddess of fruitful abundance in ancient Roman religion & myth. Pomona was said to be a wood nymph. The name Pomona comes from the Latin word pomum, "fruit," specifically orchard fruit. She was said to be  a part of the Numia, the guardian spirits who watch over people, places, or homes. While Pomona watches over & protects fruit trees & cares for their cultivation, she is not actually associated with the harvest of fruit itself, but with tending the flourishing of the fruit trees. In artistic depictions she is generally shown with a platter of fruit or a cornucopia & perhaps her pruning knife

Vertumnus & Pomona in a Garden by Adriaen van de Velde  (1636–1672)

Pomona, the alluring wood nymph, actually cared nothing for the wild woods but cared only for her well-cultivated fruit filled gardens & orchards. And Pomona had a thing about men. She fenced her garden orchards, so the rude young men couldn't trample her plants & vines. She also kept her orchards enclosed, because she wanted to keep away the men who were attracted to her good looks. Even dancing satyrs(a cross between a man & a goat) were attracted to her beauty. Despite the fact that she preferred to be alone to care & nurture her trees, this beauty was continually besieged by suitors, in particular one persistent god named Vertumnus. Vertumnus had the ability to take different human guises & made numerous attempts to woo Pomona, but she turned him away each time.

 Vertumnus & Pomona by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743)

The god Vertumus caught on to Pomona's aversion to men in her orchards & in her life generally. In Roman mythology, Vertumnus, the young, handsome god of changing seasons & patron of fruits, determined to win over Pomona.  He could change his form at will according to Ovid's Metamorphoses (xiv).  He came to her in various male disguises, which included, a reaper, an apple picker, a fisher, a solider, & more. Even with the disguises, she still never paid him the slightest bit of attention. One day Vertumnus tried a disguise as an old women. And Pomona finally allowed him to enter her garden, where he pretended to be interested in her fruit. But he finally told her he was more exquisite than her crops. After saying that, he kissed her passionately, but it wasn't enough. Vertumnus kept trying to sway her by telling her a story of a young women who rejected a boy who loved her; in despair, the boy killed hung himself, & Venus punished the girl by turning her to stone. This narrative warning of the extreme dangers of rejecting a suitor (the embedded tale of Iphis & Anaxarete) still did not seduce her. It just didn't work, of course. He then realized that it was the feminine disguise didn't work & tore it off.  It wasn't until Vertumnus appeared before her in his full manliness (apparently quite a good looking male specimen), that Pomona finally gave in to his inviting male charms. Vertumnus is a god of gardens & orchards & so it appears they were a match made in heaven. To his surprise, she fell in love with his manly wiles, & they became the ultimate loving couple working & playing in gardens & orchards together from then on.

Pomona by Hendrick Bloemaert (1602-1672)

The tale of Vertumnus & Pomona has been said to be the only purely Latin tale in Ovid's Metamorphoses. 

The subject of Vertumnus & Pomona appealed to European sculptors & painters of the 16th through the 18th centuries, providing a disguised erotic subtext in a scenario that contrasted youthful female beauty with an aged old woman. But it wasn't the old woman that ultimately won the day. In narrating the tale in the Metamorphoses, Ovid observed that the kind of kisses given by Vertumnus were never given by an old woman.  In Ovid's myth, Pomona scorned the love of the woodland gods Silvanus & Picus, but finally married the brutally handsome Vertumnus. She & Vertumnus were celebrated in  an annual Roman festival on August 13. There is a grove that is dedicated to her called the Pomonal, located not far from Ostia, the ancient port of Rome. Unlike many other Roman goddesses & gods, Pomona does not have a Greek counterpart, though she is often associated with Demeter.

Vertumnus & Pomona Caspar Netscher (1639-1684)

Vertumnus & Pomona by Aert de Gelde (1665-1727)

Vertumnus & Pomona by Abraham Bloemaert (1566 - 1651)

Vertumnus & Pomona with her Pruning Knife 1630 by Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638)

Vertumnus & Pomona  Roman god of seasons, and the goddess of fruit and gardens. 1683 David Teniers the Elder.

Vertumnus & Pomona  Juan van der Hamen (1596-1631)

Vertumnus & Pomona by Ferdinand Baltasars Pain (1616 - 1680)

Vertumnus & Pomona by Circle of  Caspar Netscher (c. 1635-1684)

18C Women Around the World

Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.

17C Soft, Docile & often Seductive Women Tending Sheep

1630 Claude Deruet (French artist, 1588–1660) Duchesse de Monatusier as a Shepherdess

During the 17C & 18C artists painted their contemporaries as personifications & allegories, & often painters would put the faces of their patrons on the bodies of the saints.  These  pastoral allegories came to be called donor portraits. These paintings remained popular, as they expanded to show the wealthy sitter as a Greek goddess, or muse, or nymph in in a rustic setting. They grew to include portraits of a shepherdess in pastoral scenes wearing idealized attire, nothing like the clothing worn by real women tending sheep.

Many of the 17C portraits of women portrayed as shepherdesses were more seductive than those painted later.  The subject might be depicted with bare breasts showing, while wealthy, identified sitters would be painted in more traditional, conservative costumes.  The theme of the shepherdess was popular in 17C Dutch art, & it was not unusual for fashionable young women to have their likenesses rendered as such. A more conservative shepherdess theme remained popular & expanded throughout the 18C on both sides of the Atlantic.

1628 Unknown artist from the workshop of Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch artist, 1592–1656) Portrait of a Lady of the Court as a Shepherdess

1624 Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) A Woman as Shepherdess

 1625 Salomon de Bray (Dutch artist, 1597-1664)  A Shepherdess

 1630s Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) Lady as Shepherdess

 1675 Mary Beale (English portrait painter, 1632-1697) Jane Fox, Lady Leigh as a Shepherdess

1670s Elisabeth Sophie Cheron (French artist, 1648-1711) Self Portrait

 1665 John Greenhill (English painter, c 1644-1676)  Portrait of a Lady as a Shepherdess

 1663 Mary Beale (English portrait painter, 1632-1697) Self Portrait of the Artist as a Shepherdess with her Son Charles (1660-1714)

1630 Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) The beautiful shepherdess

 1660s Follower of  Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Lucy Walter (1630–1658), as a Shepherdess

 1660-80s Gaspar Smitz (Dutch artist, 1635-1707)  Portrait of an Unknown Lady as a Shepherdess

Style of Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Louise de Keroualle (1649–1734), Duchess of Portsmouth

Style of Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Barbara Villiers (1640–1709), Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland as Shepherdess with a Lamb

 After Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Eleanor 'Nell' Gwyn (Gwynne) (1651–1687) As Shepherdess with Lamb

 After Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Eleanor 'Nell' Gwyn (1651–1687) As Shepherdess with Lamb

 1675 Style of Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Unknown woman, formerly identified as Eleanor ('Nell') Gwyn

 1665 Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Unknown woman, formerly known as Elizabeth Hamilton, Countess de Gramont

 1660 Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Anne Crane Lady Belasyse as a Shepherdess

1681 attributed to Caspar Netscher (Dutch artist, 1639-1684) Lady with a Lamb

1650 David Teniers the Younger (Flemish artist, 1610–1690) Shepherdess

 1650 Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch artist, 1592–1656)  Two Ladies as Shepherdesses

1630s Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) Lady as Shepherdess

 1670-99 Unknown British artist, Barbara Villiers (1640–1709), Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland, as a Shepherdess

1670 Karel Škréta (Czech painter, 1610–1674) Portrait of a girl as a Shepherdess

1630s Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) Lady as Shepherdess

1630-50s Anonymous Dutch artist, after Paulus Moreelse (Dutch artist, 1571-1638) Shepherdess

 1630 Claude Deruet (French artist, 1588–1660) Portrait of a Lady as a Shepherdess

Style of Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Portrait of a Courtesan

1600s Unknown artist from the workshop of Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch artist, 1592–1656) Portrait of a Lady of the Court as a Shepherdess

18C Women Around the World

Costumes de Differents Pays, by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810) c 1797 Hand-Colored Engraving from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

By the end of the 18C, worldwide exploration & colonization by Europeans were fairly commonplace, enabling the late 18C & 19C public to catch a glimpse of the clothing & customs of other peoples.

17C Garden Fountains Predict a Perfect, Proper Wife

1664 Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Young Lady by a Fountain

By the 17C & 18C, artists portrayed women & girls, often the eligible daughters of the patrons commissioning the portraits, near a fountain. In these fountain settings, the young lady is often depicted in the mythical realm of Arcady, a fashionable conceit of the time. At the center of Arcady is the Garden of Love, where a figure of Cupid sits atop a fountain. The young lady places her hand in the flowing water...this is a motif much used by Van Dyke & Lely & it makes an allusion to her potential as a wife & mother, recalling Proverbs, Chapter 5, Verse 18 "Let thy fountain be blessed, & rejoice in the wife of thy youth."

Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Young Lady by a Fountain (For those who did not like a blond, serious sitter, Maes apparently painted this more cheerful brunette.)

Garden fountains were originally purely functional, connected to natural springs or aqueducts & used to provide water for drinking; water for bathing & washing; & water to nurish growing plants. The painting would announce to the viewer that the parent/patron had enough money, taste, & technological expertise to channel the water through an artistic garden fountain.  Water was now not just a necessary component of nature, the garden planner could make it an integral component of art both outdoors in his garden & indoors in the paintings on his walls.  He could not only interpret nature, he could control it.  And in this painting, he could announce his "natural" superiority, & might chose to have the portrait he has commissioned suggest that his young lady might be sexually available for the right marriage partner.

Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Catherine Peels

Barend van Kalraet (Dutch artist, 1649-1737) Lady by a Fountain with a Parrot

1650 Attr David Des Granges (British artist, 1611-c.1671) Portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Carnarvon (1633-1678)

Nicolaes Maes (Dutch artist, 1634-1693) Young Lady by a Fountain

Style of Caspar Netscher (Dutch artist, 1639-1684) Portrait of a Young Lady at a Fountain

Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Unknown Lady at Fountain

1661 Peter Lely (English artist, 1618-1680) Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, 1637 - 1671. Became The First wife of James VII and II.

1650 Attributed Henri Gascard (French artist, c 1635-1701) Traditionally identified as Ninon de Lanclos (1620-1705)