Trading produce and goods has been central to urbanisation. At the heart of many towns and cities are marketplaces, where those who farm and catch bring their produce to sell to those whose urban dwellings lack the land to feed themselves. Markets are the sign that farmers have switched from subsistence to selling their crops and livestock, and the centre of much social activity as well as trade.
Gerrit Berckheyde’s view of Groote Market in Haarlem, Amsterdam from 1673 shows one the largest of the city’s marketplaces at the end of the Dutch Golden Age.
In Madrid, as in most towns and cities, trade encompassed household and manufactured goods, as shown in Francisco Goya’s The Crockery Vendor, delivered in January 1779 to be turned into a tapestry for the bedchamber of the Prince of Asturias. A market salesman with his stock of crockery is trying to convince a young Maja to part with her money.
Many of these markets attained fame. This painting by Léon Augustin Lhermitte of Les Halles in 1895 shows the central market in Paris, described so well by Émile Zola in his novel Le Ventre de Paris (The Belly of Paris, 1873).
Markets in larger towns and cities came to specialise, as depicted so well in three of The Four Elements painted by Joachim Beuckelaer in 1569-70. He composed each with a contrasting foreground referring to the element, and an embedded narrative landscape referring to a story from the Bible.
In Earth. A Fruit and Vegetable Market with the Flight into Egypt in the Background from 1569, the Biblical story is shown at the upper left, and the foreground is dominated by the fruits of the earth.
You have to look hard into the distance of Air. A Poultry Market with the Prodigal Son in the Background (1570) to see the suggestion of its narrative.
In Water. A Fish Market with the Miraculous Draught of Fishes in the Background (1569), the eye is better-guided by the arch to read its story.
Léon Lhermitte brought this scene of an Apple Market, Landerneau, Brittany (c 1878) to life with his detailed realism. With a cart on the move in the background, and sellers ready with their scales, it shows the small-scale bustle of an otherwise quiet country town.
Lhermitte’s pastel of the Vegetable Market in St-Malo (1893) is a good example of his balance between detail, as seen in the distant crowd and shop fronts, and painterly style.
Livestock markets were another specialisation, among them horse fairs.
Rosa Bonheur’s The Horse Fair from 1852-55 is probably her most famous painting today. This market was held in Paris, perhaps a surprising location now, but at that time the city still had rural areas. The line of trees marks the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, and in the distance is the distinctive dome of La Salpêtrière.
Hay was also an important commodity traded in towns and cities until well into the twentieth century.
Robert Bevan’s painting of Hay Carts, Cumberland Market from 1915 is a view of London’s last hay market, near to Bevan’s studio. The bales shown were made by mechanical baling machines and brought to London by barge.
In the winter in northern Europe, markets often traded during hours of darkness.
Well into the latter half of the nineteenth century candles were still widely used to light markets, as seen in Petrus van Schendel’s Market by Candlelight from 1865.
The Christmas season brought its own markets too.
Those who couldn’t go off to the woods to cut their own Christmas trees bought them in one of the seasonal markets set up in most towns, as shown in Carl Wenzel Zajicek’s watercolour of the Christmas Market in Am Hof Vienna from 1908.
During the nineteenth century, larger markets gained their own indoor areas where regular traders could establish permanent stalls.
Harold Gilman’s oil painting of Leeds Market, from about 1913, shows an everyday view of one of England’s northern cities. This building had only been constructed in 1901-04, and housed the fruit and vegetable stalls next to a grand central hall.
Tomorrow I’ll focus on fish, and a few examples of markets beyond Europe.