Terms and conditions of use
A young lady weighing cherries in a shop
(c. 1680)
Medium
oil on wood panel
Measurements
36.0 × 27.4 cm
Credit Line
Bequest of Robert Victor Jones, 2026
© Public Domain
Gallery location
17th Century & Flemish Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
This finely painted depiction of a boy buying sweet cherries in a shop once graced the thirty-metres long Great Flemish and Dutch Gallery in the San Donato Palace in Florence, which housed the vast collections assembled by the Russian industrialist Demidoff family. Schalcken shows us an upmarket premises, where the saleswoman is dressed in blue silk trimmed with ermine. As a young man Schalcken trained in Dordrecht with Samuel van Hoogstraten, a master trompe-l’oeil artist, and in Leiden with Gerrit Dou, who was renowned for his fijnschilder (fine painter) style. Schalcken became internationally acclaimed for his own meticulous and realistic compositions, and in particular for his mastery of candlelit subjects.