Farmer and His Wife at Market
1615
Medium
Engraving on laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet (trimmed): 19.4 × 23.1 cm (7 11/16 × 9 1/8 in.)
Classification
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
267808
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling markets 17th-century Netherlands with Jan Saenred *Farmer and His Wife at* (1615), a engraving on laid paper now housed in the Art Institute Chicago's Prints and Drawings. Measuring a modest 19.4 × 23.1 cm, this trimmed sheet captures a slice of rural life during the early Dutch Golden Age, a when the Netherlands flourished through trade and agriculture. Saenredam, a masterful Dutch engraver known for his precise reproductive prints after paintings by contemporaries like Hendrick Goltzius, brings everyday folk to the forefront—highlighting the dignity of farmers amid hag...
About the Artist
Jan Saenredam · 1565–1607
Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam (c. 1565–1607) emerged from humble beginnings in the Dutch village of Assendelft, where he was orphaned young and raised by his uncle, the local bailiff Pieter de Jongh. Initially destined for basket weaving or farm work, Saenredam's precocious talent for embellishing texts with intricate designs caught attention, leading to an apprenticeship in cartography. By 1589, at a...