The Peasants at Market (1519): Art, History and Details

The Peasants at Market (1519) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This quasi-market scene presents Dürer’s commentary on the social and economic role of women in the rural marketplace. In northern Europe during this period, lower class women possessed a certain amount of independence. They could move about the city buying and selling market goods to benefit the household. Here, a man peddles eggs from a large basket as the older woman listens shrewdly to his sales pitch. As indicated by the money purse at her feet, the hens in her hand, and the goods over her shoulder, it is the older woman and not the younger man who wields the position of power in this transaction.

Object facts

• Title: The Peasants at Market
• Date: 1519
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1958.117

Collection credit

Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.