Fish Market
Artist: Joachim Beuckelaer (Dutch, 1533–1574)
Original Dimensions: 50 5/8" x 68 7/8"
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
About Artwork: (1568) "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." - (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

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