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The Bird Seller
Willem van Mieris (Dutch, 1662–1747)
c. 1700–1710
- Medium
- black and white chalk on blue paper, laid down on brown paper
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 36.4 x 28.9 cm (14 5/16 x 11 3/8 in.); Matted: 41 x 31.8 x 0.3 cm (16 1/8 x 12 1/2 x 1/8 in.); Image: 26 x 22.3 cm (10 1/4 x 8 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
In this market scene, the Dutch artist Willem van Mieris portrayed a man and woman in a poultry shop who negotiate over the price of a bird. A curtain is pulled aside above to reveal the scene—as if the viewer sees something in secret—while a faux relief panel below them portrays amorous putti. Market scenes portraying a man and a woman often carried amorous or lascivious connotations in 17th-century Holland, undertones that were acknowledged and enjoyed by the middle-class patrons who purchased such works.
