A woman who sells groceries examines a herring from a barrel of fish offered to her by a young man. Mezzotint after G. Dou.

"In this small panel, an old woman and a young boy, gesturing to a shallow tub of fish, stand framed in an arched stone opening. Although the exact nature of their exchange cannot be determined, they are apparently discussing the herring she holds in her right hand. The boy's blue felt hat and brown pij (frock) worn over a red woolen hemtrock (waistcoat) and white shirt identify him as a fisherboy. Consequently, it appears that the boy has brought the fish for the old woman to sell; he's the purveyor for, rather than the customer of, this herring seller. She sports a red jacket, blue apron, ruffled collar, and white headdress of the type worn by many of the elderly women of a certain class that appear in Gerrit Dou's genre scenes. Her stern glance—is it dissatisfaction?—allies her to the common stereotype of fishwives as raw, coarse women. It is tempting, therefore, to interpret the action in the painting as an illustration of the contemporaneous expression "to give someone a bokking (a smoked or salted herring)", which meant to shame them with a sharp remark. Whatever the nature of the exchange between the boy and the woman, the disparity in their ages and their physical proximity allow Dou to contrast the wrinkled skin of the elderly with the smooth fresh face of youth."--Baer. loc. cit.

Foodstuffs on sale include a cabbage, carrots, onions, spring onions, two hams, and a basket of eggs

[London?] : [publisher not identified], [between 1700 and 1799]

1 print : mezzotint ; platemark 35.5 x 25.3 cm

The Dutch merchant

[State after the imprint of John Bowles has been erased].

Ronni Baer, 'Herring seller and boy', in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., (ed.), The Leiden Collection, online (accessed 14 May 2018 no mention of this mezzotint)

Wellcome Collection 31163i

After a painting by Gerrit Dou ca. 1664 in the collections successively of Count Heinrich von Brühl (1700-1763, Chancellor of Saxony, by 1750, and Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia (1729-1796), by 1769; subsequently in various collections including The Leiden Collection formed by Thomas S. Kaplan