(Antwerp circa 1527 - before 1581)
A townscape with peasants at a vendor’s stall,
oil on panel, 44 x 57 cm, framed

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz who confirmed the attribution of the present painting to Marten van Cleve. A written certificate is available.

Ertz writes: ‘From its type of composition, the painting to be assessed belongs to the large group of “carnival and St. Martin’s bonfire scenes”. Showing a large-figure composition, its tension derives from the contrast between large-scale figures in the foreground and detailed landscape painting animated by genre staffage in the background. Marten van Cleve, a contemporary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, has depicted here a scene from everyday life as it commonly took place in villages at the time, a subject frequently treated by artists: in the foreground, a woman sells fish while another woman on the right hands a pretzel to a young boy, with frolicking dogs on the left. Individual figures like the man or the fish vendor in her peculiar hat recur in similar poses in other pictures by this artist. The spotted dog, an important motif for van Cleve, must also be included here by all means. It appears time and again in many paintings treating all kinds of themes and functions as something like the artist’s signature.’