An Itinerant Peddler in a Village
1693
Medium
Black chalk, pen and gray ink, brush and gray wash, framing line in black ink
Dimensions
sheet: 7 15/16 x 12 5/16 in. (20.2 x 31.2 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Anonymous Gift, in memory of Frits Markus, 2003
Accession Number
2003.321
Tags
Art Historical Context
Cornelis Dusart’s *An Itinerant Peddler in a Village* captures a lively moment of everyday commerce in a late-seventeenth-century Dutch hamlet. Created in 1693, the drawing shows a traveling merchant surrounded by villagers, dogs, and rustic houses framed by trees, reflecting the Dutch Golden Age interest in ordinary rural life. Dusart, a pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, specialized in such genre scenes that celebrated community and modest labor rather than grand historical subjects. Executed in black chalk, pen, and gray wash, the sheet demonstrates Dusart’s skillful use of light and shadow to s...
About the Artist
Cornelis Dusart · 1660–1704
Cornelis Dusart (1660–1704) was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, and printmaker who stands as one of the most important continuators of the peasant genre tradition established by Adriaen van Ostade in Haarlem. Born in Haarlem, Dusart entered Van Ostade's workshop as a pupil and assistant, a relationship that proved formative in every respect. He so thoroughly absorbed his master's approach — the depi...