Support The single, horizontally grained oak plank is approx. 0.4-0.9 cm thick. The reverse is bevelled on all sides and has tool marks and regularly spaced saw marks.
Preparatory layers The single, warm tan-coloured ground extends over the edges of the support. It contains coarse white pigment particles, black pigment and some fine red, bright orange and brown pigment particles in a light brown matrix. Brushstrokes are visible in raking light underneath the thinly painted areas.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the edges of the support. A first lay-in of the composition was applied in brown and grey, still visible around several of the figures, baskets, fruits and vegetables, for example around the basket with melons and endives to the right of the seated woman. This undermodelling was used as a mid-tone in some areas in the background, and is also visible along the left edge of the picture plane where a strip (approx. 0.8 cm) was left uncovered. The paint layers were applied largely from the back to the front, reserving many of the compositional elements. By contrast, the two houses to either side of the small bridge were executed over the finished sky, as was the boat’s sail. The figures near the mast, the wheelbarrow at the lower right and the two pieces of white cloth on the left were also applied on top of the background. In other areas the reserves were not very carefully closed, resulting in paint overlap and changes to outlines, as is visible in the arms of the two women in the foreground. Substantial wet-in-wet blending with clear brushstrokes was used for modelling certain areas such as the sky. Modest impasto gives final highlights to the fruits and vegetables. A few alterations were made to the composition which are visible to the naked eye and with infrared photography. The hat of the man in the foreground was originally broader and flatter, the blouse of the woman sitting next to him had a different shape, and the stepped gable of the central house in the background was first a spout gable.
Esther van Duijn, 2014

Fair. The plank has a horizontal split in the middle which was reglued at some point. Old retouchings are faintly visible, especially along the split. The paint is locally abraded, for example in the thinly painted, dark clothing. The varnish has yellowed.

…; sale, Hendrik Muilman (1743-1812, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (P. van der Schley et al.), 12 April 1813 sqq., no. 192 (‘Een Nederlandsche Groenmarkt in eene Stad, op den voorgrond zit eene Vrouw met eene menigte Groenten en Vruchten, ter zijde achter haar eene Vrouw met een Mand met Artichokken, sprekende met een Boer, die aan gene zijde van haar zit, verders in het verschiet eene menigte Beelden en Woningen […] paneel, hoog 20, breed 27½ duimen [51.4 x 70.7 cm]’), bought in at fl. 390;¹¹Copy RKD. his son, Willem Ferdinand Mogge Muilman (1778-1849), Amsterdam; his daughter, Anna Maria van de Poll-Mogge Muilman (1811-1878), Amsterdam; her stepson, Jacobus Salomon Hendrik van de Poll (1837-1880), Amsterdam; by whom bequeathed to the museum, with 49 other paintings, 2 July 1880;²²NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 367 (21 June 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 288, nos. 36 (26 June 1880), 37 (29 June 1880); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 370 (30 June 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 289, nos. 39 (3 July 1880), 41 (9 July 1880); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 162, no. 371 (15 July 1880); NHA, ARM, Kop., inv. 39, p. 291, no. 50 (10 August 1880).on loan to the Historisch Museum, Rotterdam, through the RBK, since September 1986³³Provenance reconstructed in C. van der Bas, ‘Stage-verslag Rijksmuseum’, 2003 (unpub. typescript in Rijksmuseum archives).

Object number: SK-A-717

Credit line: Jonkheer J.S.H. van de Poll Bequest, Amsterdam

Hendrick Martensz Sorgh’s first market scenes depict fishmongers,⁶⁶See SK-C-227. but he gradually seems to have developed a preference for greengrocers. The earliest is a work dated 1654 in Kassel,⁷⁷Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in B. Schnackenburg, Gesamtkatalog Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Kassel, coll. cat. Kassel 1996, II, pl. 155. and the painting in the Rijksmuseum is among his latest in the genre. Here, though, not just vegetables are to be seen, for the woman in the middle ground is selling fish, possibly herring. The central figure in the composition is the woman seated in the foreground and surrounded by a lavish display of fruit and vegetables. The baskets on the left contain grapes, plums and pears, while the one on the right holds melons and endives. Among the items laid out on the cobbles are carrots, turnips, cabbages and two large pumpkins.⁸⁸The fruit and vegetables are identified in A.C. Zeven and W.A. Brandenburg, ‘Use of Paintings from the 16th to 19th Centuries to Study the History of Domesticated Plants’, Economic Botany 40 (1986), pp. 397-408, esp. p. 399 (caption). L.T. Schneeman, ‘Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh as Painter of Market Scenes’, in R.E. Fleischer and S. Scott Munshower (eds.), The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting, Penn State University Park 1988, pp. 169-75, esp. p. 172, draws attention to the similarities between Sorgh’s vegetable markets of the early 1660s and the market scenes of sixteenth-century artists such as Pieter Aertsen and Joachim de Bueckelaer.

The picture is signed on the rectangular white patch on the wall above the head of the standing woman. Some sources mention the presence of a date of 1662, albeit with a question mark for the last digit,⁹⁹P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: A Completely Illustrated Catalogue, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1976, p. 517, no. A 717, and L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, diss., The Pennsylvania State University 1982, pp. 144, 221. but an enlargement of this barely legible inscription leaves little doubt that it should be read as ‘1664’. Sorgh employed a very colourful palette, as he had done in his Interior with a Lute Player of three years earlier.¹⁰¹⁰See SK-A-495. The refined way in which he allows the light to fall and his use of the different groups of figures to create a sense of depth, and well-preserved details such as the baskets on the left and the upturned wheelbarrow in the bottom right corner testify to his skill as a painter.

Market scenes such as this, with an abundance of produce, have occasionally been interpreted as expressions of local pride.¹¹¹¹See W.E. Franits, Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution, New Haven/London 2004, p. 191. However, as is usually the case with Sorgh, they are not a faithful record of street vendors in his hometown of Rotterdam.¹²¹²In C. van Lakerveld (ed.), The Dutch Cityscape in the 17th Century and its Sources, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum)/Toronto (Art Gallery of Ontario) 1977, p. 228, it is assumed that this picture may incorporate elements of the main market square in Rotterdam. See L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, diss., The Pennsylvania State University 1982, p. 133, for the topographical accuracy of Sorgh’s market scenes. It is perhaps more likely that they are a general allusion to the flowering and prosperity of the Dutch Republic. Several authors believed that there was a special significance to the small melon that the seated woman is holding up while smiling at the viewer,¹³¹³L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, diss., The Pennsylvania State University 1982, p. 143, associates this detail with an emblem of Jacob Cats, ‘Pomme pourrie gaste sa compagnie’ (One rotten apple spoils the barrel). Sutton in P.C. Sutton et al., Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting, exh. cat. Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art)/Berlin (Gemäldegalerie)/London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1984, p. 305, also cites an emblem of Jacob Cats in his description of this painting, ‘Amis sont comme le melon / De dix souvent pas un est bon’ (Friends are like melons, only one in a dozen is any good). On this see also L.T. Schneeman, ‘Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh as Painter of Market Scenes’, in R.E. Fleischer and S. Scott Munshower (eds.), The Age of Rembrandt: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting, Penn State University Park 1988, pp. 169-75, esp. p. 172; L.A. Stone-Ferrier, ‘Gabriel Metsu’s Vegetable Market at Amsterdam: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Market Paintings and Horticulture’, The Art Bulletin 71 (1989), pp. 428-52, esp. p. 433; Lammertse in F. Lammertse, J. Giltaij and A. Janssen, Dutch Genre Paintings of the 17th Century, coll. cat. Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen) 1998, p. 16. but these readings based on seventeenth-century emblems seem a little far-fetched. A copy after this painting was auctioned in 1993.¹⁴¹⁴Sale, London, South Kensington (Christie’s), 28 October 1993, no. 195 (ill.).

Gerdien Wuestman, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

L.T. Schneeman, Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh: A Painter of Rotterdam, diss., The Pennsylvania State University 1982, pp. 144, 221, no. 54; Sutton in P.C. Sutton et al., Masters of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Painting, exh. cat. Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art)/Berlin (Gemäldegalerie)/London (Royal Academy of Arts) 1984, pp. 305-06, no. 101; Meyerman in N.I. Schadee (ed.), Rotterdamse meesters uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Rotterdam (Historisch Museum) 1994, p. 231, no. 54

1880, p. 496, no. 333a XLI; 1887, p. 160, no. 1348; 1903, p. 248, no. 2214; 1934, p. 265, no. 2214; 1976, p. 517, no. A 717; 1992, p. 85, no. A 717

Gerdien Wuestman, 2026, 'Hendrick Martensz Sorgh, A Vegetable Market, 1664', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200107991