How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
Steen’s paintings of everyday life in seventeenth-century Holland are nearly always humorous in tone. This tiny picture, which is smaller than a sheet of A4 paper and was probably made when Steen was in his mid-twenties, is no different. An old woman screws up her eyes as she tries to read a text with a pair of glasses offered to her by a pedlar. The man in blue is clearly amused by her struggles and, catching our eye, invites us to laugh with him. The three figures on the right also form a vignette illustrating the three ages of man: the curiosity of the young girl, the confidence of the man at the peak of life and the declining powers of the old woman. This painting seems originally have been part of a pair which illustrated interactions between travellers and villagers.
Title
A Pedlar selling Spectacles outside a Cottage
Date
about 1650-3
Medium
Oil on oak
Measurements
H 24.6 x W 20.3 cm
Accession number
NG2556
Acquisition method
Salting Bequest, 1910
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
-
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary Pollok House -
The Skittle Players Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge -
The Doctor's Visit University of Edinburgh -
The Lute Player The Wallace Collection -
Mother and Child York Art Gallery -
Interior with a Painter and His Family The Fitzwilliam Museum -
The Rommelpot: Interior with Three Figures Manchester Art Gallery - 59 more