Artwork
The Vegetable Market
The Vegetable Market is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh. It dates from 1662 and is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
About this work
Technique & Style
The work measures 51 cm in height and 71 cm in width, adhering to the traditional dimensions for Dutch genre scenes of the period.
Created in 1662, The Vegetable Market is an oil painting executed on a panel support. The work measures 51 cm in height and 71 cm in width, adhering to the traditional dimensions for Dutch genre scenes of the period. As a genre painting, the piece depicts a market setting rendered through the artist's handling of oil paint, a medium that allowed for the detailed observation of figures and produce characteristic of the era. The physical object remains in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
History & Provenance
The Vegetable Market is an oil painting by Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh dated 1662. The work was created in that year, executed in oil paint on panel, and depicts a genre scene.
The painting's documented ownership chain begins with Henric Muilman, after which it passed to Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll. It is now held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, where it is located.
No commission details or earlier provenance entries are recorded in the available sources.
The Vegetable Market is held in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where it is recorded as an oil-on-panel work painted by Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh in 1662.
Before entering the museum's holdings, the painting was owned by Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll and Henric Muilman, both of whom are documented as former owners.
The sources do not provide a specific inventory or accession number for the work, nor do they document any exhibition history.
Context
Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh painted The Vegetable Market in 1662, a work exemplifying Dutch Golden Age genre painting that documented contemporary bourgeois domestic life. The painting, executed in oil on panel, measures 51 cm in height and 71 cm in width, reflecting the meticulous naturalism characteristic of 17th-century Dutch still lifes and market scenes. Its creation occurred within a flourishing period of Dutch realism where genre works served as both decorative elements and moralizing commentaries on everyday commerce.
Sorgh's contribution to this tradition is contextualized by his role among contemporaries who specialized in middle-class interior and market genre scenes, though specific scholarly analyses of its reception remain sparse in available records.
Overview
Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh’s oil on canvas, dated 1662, portrays a lively vegetable market. The work is part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection and exemplifies the Dutch genre tradition of depicting everyday commercial activity with careful observation of light, colour and human interaction.
Subject & Meaning
At the centre of the composition a woman in a straw hat and a red vest leans over a spread of baskets, clutching a cabbage while conversing with a standing male figure. Around them stalls and modest town buildings frame the scene, suggesting a communal space where trade and social exchange intertwine.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh (1610–1670) was an artist, born in Rotterdam.
