Fish Market

Joachim Beuckelaer

1568 · Oil on Baltic oak · European Paintings

This masterfully composed view of a fish market represents a new kind of scene of everyday life, initiated by Beuckelaer and his teacher and uncle, Pieter Aertsen, who lived and worked in Antwerp. It was painted during a tumultuous era of religious warfare, which disrupted the art market and motivated a change from purely religious to more secular themes. Here, the flourishing fish industry is celebrated through the display of great bounty from the sea. Such pictures may have contained a moralizing subtext, warning against the excesses of food and sexual pleasures.

Artist

Joachim Beuckelaer

Date

1568

Medium

Oil on Baltic oak

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift and Bequest of George Blumenthal, by exchange, 2015