Der Apfelmarkt

The city serves as literal stage in these two drawings

by Jan van de Velde II (1593–1641). Apple Market [18]

pulls us right into the action. Two women are

quarrelling, fists clenched, arms pressed against

the hips. Bystanders watch the fight, some clapping

(fig. 1), others pointing their fingers. We can only

wonder whether the dispute is about prices, due

to a wrong choice of words, or because the apples

have spilled to the ground. At far left, a bearded

fisherman1 is pointing at the scene, too. He leads

our gaze to the old woman seated in front of him,

generously offering apples to children, some of

whom are begging, like the boy holding out his hat.

While good and bad market behavior appears to be

the topic of this drawing,2 Poultry Market [17] has a

slightly different story to tell. This market attracts

a wealthier clientele, including ladies in ruff collars

and huiks (hooded cloaks) carefully inspecting

the birds offered for sale. There are an unusual

number of men present—unusual because going to

the market was women’s business.3 Some interact

with women, discussing the birds that are grabbed

by their throats or scrutinized through open beaks,

such as the plucked goose shown by a vendor in a

self-confident pose (fig. 2). Given the two meanings

of the Dutch vogelen—“birds” and “to copulate”—

such interactions feature an erotic undertone.4

The theatrical qualities found in both drawings

may parallel, whether intentionally or not,

Gerbrand Adriaensz. Bredero’s (1585–1618) farce,

Moortje, which includes lengthy descriptions of

Amsterdam markets.5 Not only does his portrayal

of the poultry market reflect the variety of birds

offered in Van de Velde’s drawing,6 but its characters,

like the coxcomb Kackerlack, are echoed

in the falconers pictured to the right. Moortje was

first performed in 1615 and published in 1617, both

in Amsterdam. The Vienna drawings are assigned

to the period 1616–22, which would indeed allow

knowledge of Bredero’s popular farce. There is

reason to assume that Van de Velde, a former pupil

of Jacob Matham (1571–1631) (see [62, 67, 88]), spent

his most productive period, 1615–16, in Amsterdam,

where most of his prints were published.7

Allusions to Amsterdam markets appear in

the Albertina’s drawings, even if they were

not necessarily made to depict actual locales.

Amsterdam’s weekly vogelmarkt (bird market)

was held in about 1600–1620 at a small site in the

Nes, between the Grote Vleeshal (large butcher’s

hall) and the Kleine Vleeshall (small butcher’s

hall).8 Its apple market was situated at Nieuwezijds

Voorburgwal, between Kerkbrug and Gasthuissluis,

before it was moved in 1616 to the Singel canal,

between Hei- and Raambrug.9 Apple Market could

well relate to the latter site on the Singel, with its

background view of a canal, marked by a bridge and

the masts, sails, and flags of several ships. Markets

were preferably installed along waterways, facilitating

the transport of goods.10

Van de Velde probably drew these sheets as

independent works. Executed on the same type of

paper and identical in format, they have been kept

as a pair since the Braamkamp sale (1768).11 They

may have been intended as companion pieces from

the beginning: when [18] is placed on the right

and [17] on the left, they form a harmonious vista,

with dominant buildings as well as each drawing’s

signature located at the respective outer edge.

Only the drawing materials slightly diverge: the

respective inks differ in tone and shade. Moreover,

[17] has been primed with a thin hue of light-brown

ink, perhaps to conceal a sketch on the verso of the

sheet.12

Market scenes also feature in etchings by the

artist. Title prints from 1616 (fig. 3) and 1617 (fig. 4)

picture a vegetable market and are decorated

with vegetables, respectively.13 These prints were

followed by series of landscapes. Such thematic

shifts were rhetorical tropes that highlighted

opposing themes such as city and country.14 What is

more, they illustrate the interdependence between

the city and the surrounding countryside: the city

offering a place for trade, protected by law,15 and

the countryside embodying recreation and retreat,

while providing the townspeople with a constant

flow of natural resources.16 By highlighting the

benefits of the country’s fruitfulness, Van de Velde

joined those who celebrated the market as “a focus

of civic pride.”17

There may be a great deal of truth to these images,

given the respite offered by the Twelve Years’

Truce (1609–21). A 1614 description of the plentitude

of apples (appelen) offered at Amsterdam’s apple

market reads like a present-day advertisement for a

grower: “Que appelen, goudtgeele queen, shijvelingen,

Sint Jans appelen, potappelen, kabauwen . . . ,

puppinghen, winderguldelinghen, somerguldelinghen,

joopkens, kerlappelen.”18 Such abundance almost

makes us forget that the Netherlands was then

in the midst of the so-called Little Ice Age (see [14]).

From a modern-day perspective, we also know that

some degree of economic alienation between town

and country was already afoot.19 City growth and

urbanization20 led to a rising demand for food that

needed to be produced and imported on a large

scale.21 Against this backdrop, Van de Velde’s market

scenes are idealized, if not nostalgic.

 

1. Honig 1996, 523, on the fisherman’s stereotypical appearance.

2. Honig 1996, 523.

3. Honig 1996, 513.

4. As indicated by Bisanz-Prakken in Bisanz-Prakken and

Schröder 2009. An introduction to the erotic in bird imagery is

found in De Jongh 2000, 21–58.

5. Bredero 1984, lines 639–754; see Stone-Ferrier 1991, 46–52, for

associating Bredero’s play with a market scene by Gabriel Metsu

(1629–1667), and De Jongh in De Jongh and Luijten 1997, 150, for

associating the play with a type of vegetable vendor found in the

Van de Velde etching reproduced here as figure 3.

6. Bredero 1984, lines 648–51 and 663–68 mention capons, doves,

chicken, turkey, wild goose, different sorts of duck, and swan.

7. Van Gelder 1933, 6. During the period associated with the

Vienna drawings, he is documented in Haarlem and Enkhuizen;

see Van Gelder 1933, 5–8, 47.

8. Kistemaker 1984, 43.

9. Kistemaker 1984, 50; see a later depiction of the market by

Reinier Zeeman (1623/24–1664), c. 1659, archief.amsterdam

/beeldbank/detail/5a669a0f-b975-4ed3-779d -ebbec9c433b3.

10. Kistemaker 1984, 85. In Haarlem, for instance, the apple

market was held on the banks of the Spaarne river;

see De Koning 1808, 348.

11. Though Van de Velde drew other market scenes as well, such

as Fish-Market, n.d., pen and brown ink, brush and gray and

brown washes, over black chalk, on light-brown prepared paper,

32.2 x 55.9 cm, The Albertina Museum, Vienna, 8093, they differ

in size and style.

12. Thanks to Karine Bovagnet for kindly communicating the

findings from her examination of the drawing; email to the

author, September 22, 2021.

13. A market scene also figures in a printed series after Willem

Buytewech the Elder (1591/92–1624) picturing the Elements,

1622, Hollstein (HD) 1952, 4:71, no. 25, which prompted Van

Berge-Gerbaud in Luijten and Van Suchtelen 1993, 620, to

suggest a possible context for such allegorical subjects for the

two sheets. In the view of most authors, that series’ date is the

terminus ante quem for the present drawings.

14. See Honig 1996, 511.

15. Honig 1996, 511, writes of “the city as place where connections

are established on the basis of mutual economic interest.”

This idea is best illustrated in a print by Claes Jansz. Visscher

(c. 1586/87–1652), Profile of Amsterdam Seen from the IJ, 1611,

Hollstein (HD) 1952, 38:72, no. 125; Honig 1996, fig. 17. On the

market as urban phenomenon governed by regulations, see

Honig 1996, 513. Those regulations would have been disputed by

villages in the seventeenth century; see Stone-Ferrier 1991, 41,

42, on the market as symbol of power and pride.

16. See also De Bièvre 2015, 297.

17. See De Jongh in in De Jongh and Luijten 1997, 149.

18. Quoted in Kistemaker 1984, 50. Some of these varieties are

still offered today; see Oude fruitrassen in Noord-Nederland,

vriendenvanhetoudefruit.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014

/10/OUDE-FRUITRASSEN-NOORD-2010.pdf, mentioning

guldelingen, 4, goudtgeele (queen), 7, and shijveling, 9.

19. This reached an initial peak around the mid-seventeenth

century; see Borger 1978, 96.

20. By 1514, 51 percent of Holland’s population lived in cities (see

Kistemaker 1984, 18), and the population of Amsterdam had

risen to 100,000 (see Noordam 1978, 162).

21. This development was first manifested in grain trade;

Blom 2021, 97. Fortunately, however, it forced Dutch farmers to

turn to stock farming, resulting in positive side effects such as

new soil-fertilization methods.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 17-18