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1 of 253523 objects
A Girl selling Grapes to an old Woman c.1655
OIl on panel | 43.8 x 35.3 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 406607
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A Girl Selling Grapes is an early work by van Mieris, dating from the mid- to late-1650s. It is to be presumed that all the produce shown in the picture has been grown on a smallholding and is being sold by the girl from her wheelbarrow on a house-to-house basis. Such compositions can be found in the work of Dou (The Herring Seller of 1654 in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and Metsu (The Herring Seller in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, and Old Woman selling Fish of c.1660, Wallace Collection, London) where the models are also very similar. It is unlikely that there is any allegorical meaning in the picture, although the different kinds of fruit and vegetable are no doubt intended to refer to the fertility of the Dutch soil and the development of horticulture.
Signed lower left: 'F.v. Mieris'
Catalogue entry adapted from Enchanting the Eye: Dutch paintings of the Golden Age, London, 2004Provenance
In France during the eighteenth century, in the Choiseul collection (when engraved), Prince de Conti, d’Arveley, and Calonne collections. Purchased by George IV from Sir Thomas Baring as part of a group of 86 Dutch and Flemish paintings, most of which were collected by Sir Thomas’s father, Sir Francis Baring; they arrived at Carlton House on 6 May 1814; recorded in the Anti Room, Ground Floor, at Carlton House in 1816 (no 123) and the Anti-Room to the Dining Room in 1819 (no 77); in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in 1841 (no 75)
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Medium and techniques
OIl on panel
Measurements
43.8 x 35.3 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
62.4 x 54.2 x 4.5 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
The bargain, previously entitled
