The Fruit Seller

An inventory taken in 1621 found this canvas in the Campi household in Cremona, 30 years after Vincenzo Campi died. He had painted the four pictures of the series for his own house. When his widow died around 1623 the monks of San Sigismondo, just outside the city, bought the group, and it hung in the rooms where the convent received its guests. In 1882 the Pinacoteca was separated from the Accademia di Belle Arti it had grown up inside, the four canvases were divided between them, and part of the set went into storage. They were brought back together and shown as a group again in 1994. The young woman sits behind a heap of fruit and vegetables in which every kind is painted separately and can be named.