PETRUS VAN SCHENDEL | GROTE MARKT, THE HAGUE

Heinrich F.A. Ritter von Rogge (and sold, his posthumous sale, C.J. Wawra, Vienna, March 29-30, 1898, lot 53 (as Gemüsemarkt in Rotterdam))

Private Collection (acquired by 1919)

Thence by descent 

Under a full moon, a bustling scene in The Hague’s Grote Markt unfolds into an evocative narrative of Dutch life. Despite the late hour, the market heaves with shoppers, their profiles visible in the shadows and illuminated by the distant candlelight of stalls. At the center is a veritable cornucopia of vegetables and fruit, carefully rendered in swaths of light and shadow, from cabbage and cauliflower to carrots, leeks, onions and apples. Lit by the bright light of a taper, a benevolent seller shares her produce with an interested customer, who leans closer to the light to inspect. Another woman, with a piece of lace pinned over her dark hair, looks directly out of the composition, unaware of the approving glance cast at her by the handsome young man behind her. High above the bustling scene, alongside the warehouses and trading houses that line the square, the tower of Sint-Jacobskerk is illuminated.

A market was first held on the site of the Grote Markt in 1614, accessible to farmers via the Prisengracht canal (filled in at the end of the nineteenth century). Initially a fruit and vegetable market, it grew to include butter, cheese and flowers and was the largest market in the city by the eighteenth century. An important part of daily life, the Grote Markt and Sint-Jacobskerk appeared often on canvas, such as in Bartholomeus van der Helst’s 1652 portrait of Mary Stuart, Princess of Orange, as Widow of William II, where the buzzing market is visible in the distance (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), or Paulus Constantijn La Fargue’s expansive view of hundreds of residents under the shade of trees and the tower of Sint-Jacobskerk (fig. 1, 1760, National Gallery, London).

Inspired by Dutch genre-painters of the Golden Age, notably Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706), Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), and the Utrecht Caravaggisti, Petrus van Schendel grew up in Breda and trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. By the early 1850s, van Schendel was at the height of his artistic powers and had an international reputation. Queen Victoria acquired a work by the artist through the dealer C.J. Nieuwenhuijs as a birthday present for Prince Albert, and it remains in the British Royal Collection.