A Woman Selling Fruit and Herrings 1644 - 1667

Gabriel Metsu painted ‘A Woman Selling Fruit and Herrings’ using oil on wood panel sometime before his death in 1667. The illusionistic skill on display is remarkable, but so too is the social picture it presents. Look at the contrast between the dark background and the highlights on the food. It shows us a slice of 17th-century Dutch life, where the exchange of goods was central. Metsu expertly renders the textures of everyday items: the rough fabric of the woman’s clothes, the smooth skin of the fruit, the metallic sheen of the herrings. The skill required to capture such detail was highly valued, yet the subject matter—a humble transaction—suggests a society where labor and commerce touched everyone. Consider the labor involved, from the fisherman hauling in the herrings to the farmer growing the fruit, and then the labor of the woman selling it, recorded by the labor of Metsu’s hand. This painting invites us to appreciate how artistic skill, economic exchange, and the everyday textures of life are deeply intertwined.