Poultry Sellers
Artist: Joachim Beuckelaer (Flemish, ca. 1533-1574)
Date: 1564
Dimensions:
H: 43 1/8 in. (109.7 cm); W: 55 in. (139.7 cm)
Medium: Oil on panel
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 1978.57
Label Text:This Flemish painting provides a glimpse of peasant life in the 1500s. Joachim Beuckelaer convincingly described in paint the contrasting textures of stoneware jugs, wicker baskets, and the feathers of various fowl. He seemed to delight in ordinary detail: note, for example, the worn, discolored leather of the man’s shoe.
Beuckelaer specialized in the new genre of the market scene, which was pioneered by his uncle, the artist Pieter Aertsen. There may be more depicted here than a customer buying poultry, however: bird sellers often symbolized lechers. The man holds up a pair of hens to the young lady, a gesture possibly meant as an erotic overture (“to bird” was a crude term for sex). This meaning may be emphasized by the placement of the woman’s right hand.
Beuckelaer specialized in the new genre of the market scene, which was pioneered by his uncle, the artist Pieter Aertsen. There may be more depicted here than a customer buying poultry, however: bird sellers often symbolized lechers. The man holds up a pair of hens to the young lady, a gesture possibly meant as an erotic overture (“to bird” was a crude term for sex). This meaning may be emphasized by the placement of the woman’s right hand.
On view
In Collection(s)