The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam

Around 1660 Gabriel Metsu lived on the Prinsengracht, one of Amsterdam's canals, and the vegetable market was held right in front of his house. The gabled houses at the back of this picture are the ones he saw from home. Some of the people come from the stage. The young man in bright red, holding the arm of a maid with a bucket, is dressed like a clown, and the Louvre reads the pair as a nod to Moortje, a 1615 comedy by the Amsterdam playwright Bredero, still very popular in Metsu's day, in which a talkative servant carries the chatter of the stalls. Around them lie cabbages and roots, a hen sits on the cobbles, a rooster stands on a wicker basket and a dog noses about. Metsu signed it on an envelope dropped on the ground.