Vertumnus and Pomona, ca. 1789

William Hamilton RA (1751 - 1801)

RA Collection: Art

Hamilton was a history and decorative painter. He was in Italy from about 1766 for two years and studied in Rome under the painter Antonio Zucchi (1726–95) before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1769. He was employed by Robert Adam as a decorative painting, working at Kedleston in Derbyshire and Highcliffe in Hampshire. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1774, showing both history paintings and portraits. Despite success as a painter he continued to work as a decorative artist.

Hamilton’s Diploma work represents a myth best known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A nymph, Pomona, loved to tend her fruit trees and flowers and shut herself up in a garden. Vertumnus, the god of orchards, desired her and tried various ruses to enter the garden. It was in his disguise as a very old woman that he was finally allowed to enter the garden and woo Pomona.