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A Pedlar selling Spectacles outside a Cottage

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Steen’s paintings of everyday life in seventeenth-century Holland are nearly always humorous in tone. This tiny picture, which is smaller than a sheet of A4 paper and was probably made when Steen was in his mid-twenties, is no different. An old woman screws up her eyes as she tries to read a text with a pair of glasses offered to her by a pedlar. The man in blue is clearly amused by her struggles and, catching our eye, invites us to laugh with him. The three figures on the right also form a vignette illustrating the three ages of man: the curiosity of the young girl, the confidence of the man at the peak of life and the declining powers of the old woman. This painting seems originally have been part of a pair which illustrated interactions between travellers and villagers.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

A Pedlar selling Spectacles outside a Cottage

Date

about 1650-3

Medium

Oil on oak

Measurements

H 24.6 x W 20.3 cm

Accession number

NG2556

Acquisition method

Salting Bequest, 1910

Work type

Painting

Normally on display at

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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