Gabriel Metsu's Vegetable Market at Amsterdam: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Market Paintings and Horticulture

Abstract

After the middle of the seventeenth century, an unprecedented group of paintings of vegetable markets was produced quite suddenly by Dutch artists from those cities which had become internationally famous for their horticulture. The paintings convey pride in local markets and often scientifically accurate information through their depictions of vegetables, including a newly developed Dutch carrot. Gabriel Metsu's Vegetable Market at Amsterdam, a fine example of this phenomenon, is examined in the specific context of Amsterdam's celebrated and powerful role as a market city. An unpublished document shows that Metsu lived in Amsterdam where the vegetable market took place, providing him with firsthand experience of the subject of his painting.

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Notes on contributors

Linda Stone-Ferrier

Linda Stone-Ferrier's research has focused on 17th-century Dutch genre and landscape painting. Her article, “Views of Haarlem: A Reconsideration of Ruisdael and Rembrandt,” appeared in the Art Bulletin of September 1985. [Kress Foundation Department of Art History, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045]