The Poultry Woman

This painting is the pendant of the Poultry Seller (also in Dresden). The two works are identical in size, bear the same date, show the same motif using variously a male or a female protagonist, are set in the one case in a town and in the other in a village, and reveal a number of elements in common: in both cases an old man with one exposed knee sits beneath a bare tree with long branches that extend from the painting’s edge to its centre; and both paintings depict an inquisitive little spaniel, as well as plants painted with botanical precision in their respective lower inside corners.