An avalanche of outsize vegetables tumbles towards us on the left of this painting, as if we, like the women in the foreground, are prospective customers. On the left is a tower of baskets containing pink and orange carrots, two marrows, several gherkins or cucumbers, two white radishes and a bunch of shallots, pink and white cabbages, melons and artichokes. On the right a mix of vegetables and glistening fruits are piled in baskets and bowls balanced rather precariously on a wheelbarrow: at the front are a cauliflower trimmed of its outer leaves, apples and pea-pods; on other trays are green and purple grapes, peaches and plums, pears, cherries and gooseberries. At the top are two earthenware dishes, one containing strawberries, the other mulberries.

The two women at the front, often called stallholders, appear to be buying rather than selling. Their rolled up sleeves and aprons show that they are servants who do manual work. The one in red has half-filled her shopping basket with apples, while her companion holds up a giant cabbage for inspection. The sellers are probably the the couple on the right, who seem to have brought their produce to the well in a wheelbarrow and are preparing it for sale. They have pulled up water from the well in the bucket which hangs over its side, and wash their vegetables in the stone basin beside the well before putting them on display.

This is one of a group of four large paintings where food is used to symbolise the four elements -- earth, air, water and fire. In the background of all four are biblical scenes. Here you can see the Flight into Egypt, with the holy family crossing a bridge on the left. They are passing in front of a building which seems to be decorated with a classical statue in a niche, perhaps one of the idols of Egypt that fell from their pedestals as the infant Christ went by.

Joachim Beuckelaer specialised in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food.  He often reused people, objects and elements in different pictures, although he rarely repeated them exactly. The woman in red was painted from a model he frequently used -- she also appears in The Four Elements: Water and The Four Elements: Fire, where she wears the same red jacket. This was evidently one of Beuckelaer's studio props: it appears in several of his paintings, including The Four Elements: Air. The woman in yellow reappears, similarly dressed, in Fire. Similar landscapes with bridges appear in his Two Women and a Man selling Poultry dated 1563 (Salzburg), another of the same subject dated 1564 (Moscow) and in other paintings.

Although it's clearly summer, with trees in full leaf, not all these fruit and vegetables would have been in season at the same time. None are especially exotic, though -- these are the kinds of foods that were readily available to the ordinary Netherlanders. Beuckelaer worked both from life and from sketches. The cauliflower with trimmed leaves on the right-hand side of this painting appears in other pictures by him, as do the grapes and the artichokes which top the mountain of vegetables on the right. All were evidently painted from the same preliminary sketches.

Beuckelaer often put his signature in half-hidden places. Here he signed his name and painted his monogram on the wheelbarrow in the front right corner, and put the date, 1569, on the well head.

Style: High Renaissance