The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam
An open-air produce market on an Amsterdam canal-side street — an everyday corner of the 17th-century city.
Amsterdam
A standpoint is recorded for this painting, but it has not been independently confirmed against a museum or scholarly source, so treat it as approximate.
The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam — at a glance
- Artist
- Gabriël Metsu (1629–1667)
- Year
- c. 1660–1662
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
- Place
- A canal-side market street, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Viewpoint
- An identifiable market street beside an Amsterdam canal — the 17th-century topography largely survives
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 97 × 81 cm
- Now at
- Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 1460)
Overview
The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam is a genre painting by Gabriël Metsu, made about 1660–62. It shows an outdoor produce market on a canal-side street in the Dutch capital, with stallholders, shoppers and passers-by. It is oil on canvas, about 97 by 81 cm, and it hangs in the Louvre in Paris (inventory 1460).
Where was The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam painted?
Museum interpretation Metsu sets the scene on an identifiable market street beside one of Amsterdam's canals, lined with tall brick houses with stepped and neck gables. The specific corner has been discussed by scholars; the general topography — canal, bridge, gabled houses — is that of the 17th-century city, much of which survives in the canal ring today.
What is in the painting?
In the foreground, baskets and stalls of vegetables and fruit; a seated woman weighs or sorts produce, and a well-dressed customer and her maid inspect it. Behind them the street opens onto a canal and a humpbacked bridge, with gabled houses and small figures going about their day. A dog noses among the baskets.
Look closely
The produce stalls
Baskets of vegetables and fruit fill the foreground, sharply observed down to the individual leaves.
The customer and maid
A well-dressed shopper and her servant inspect the goods, set against the working stallholders.
The canal bridge
A humpbacked bridge crosses the canal behind, carrying the eye into the city.
The gabled houses
Tall brick houses with stepped and neck gables line the street — standard Amsterdam building.
Analysis
Composition and light
A close, busy foreground of figures and produce opens onto a bright, receding street and canal.
Scholarship Metsu contrasts a crowded, sharply observed near group — faces, hands, textiles, vegetables — with an airy background of street, water and sky, using the bridge and the line of houses to carry the eye back. The light is clear and even, the detail crisp.
History & provenance
The painting has been in French royal and then national collections since the 18th century and hangs in the Louvre.
Sources
- Musée du Louvre, Paris — collection entry for Gabriël Metsu, ‘The Vegetable Market in Amsterdam’ (inv. 1460; oil on canvas, c. 97 × 81 cm)
- Adriaan Waiboer, ‘Gabriel Metsu’ (National Gallery of Ireland / NGA Washington / Rijksmuseum, 2010)
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