The Seller of Celery 1741 - 1763

Curator: This is John Ingram's "The Seller of Celery," an engraving dating from around 1741 to 1763. It's currently part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. Editor: My first thought? Austere elegance. It’s stark, yet that woman holding those woven baskets—it feels so human, almost classical in its composition. Curator: Absolutely. Prints like these circulated widely, shaping perceptions of everyday life for those who couldn't directly experience it. Genre scenes like this reflected and influenced societal views, solidifying a sense of order. How labor was visualized here clearly has an effect on our view of class structures. Editor: The baskets and produce also intrigue me. Woven objects weren’t simply containers; their very creation represented skilled labor, a knowledge passed down. Celery, then a more valuable commodity. Each line, carefully etched, elevating the common to art, really displays a keen attention to materials and labour. Curator: The artist, by focusing on her labor and tools, places her firmly within a socio-economic bracket but also adds to the era's vision of an idealized worker—rustic yet respectable. It presents a picture carefully managed. Editor: I wonder about her individual experience, about the materiality of her day-to-day. The feel of the earth, the weight of her wares. Her world reduced to these delicate lines. I think these prints were probably produced and sold everywhere to the average person to appreciate the beauty in laboring. Curator: Precisely, a mass medium shaping collective memory and ideas about gender and class through repeated imagery and controlled narratives, subtly defining expectations within society. Editor: Looking closely at the textures, considering what went into its production and how it made its way into homes and collections…it definitely reshapes my idea of prints from the 1700s. Curator: Indeed. This offers an excellent chance to ponder not just art, but art's impact on culture through printed imagery.