Florists on the waterfront

The painting from the collection of the Potocki family, former owners of the Łańcut castle, depicts two women with wicker baskets full of flowers and vegetables, selling them on a pier. One woman is sitting, the other is carrying a basket full of vegetables (cauliflowers), next to them are baskets full of peppers and cabbage, as well as flowers in round dishes. A fisherman walks along the wharf with an empty wicker basket on his back, holding a fish landing net in his hands. A little behind the seated woman is a two-wheeled cart harnessed to two horses, with a coachman on a bench. The cart is full of cabbage. In the background of the painting, there are silhouettes of people taking part in the market, between baskets with goods (bright patches of flowers and vegetables stand out). The scene takes place under an overcast sky, reminiscent of a sky before a storm. In places, the colour blue shines through in the sky, with pink reflections above the horizon. A patch of sea can be seen on the left side of the canvas, with schematic silhouettes of two ships on it. The dress code of the individuals indicates a Dutch wharf. The painting is signed in the lower right corner of the canvas, “H. Magerer”. Unfortunately, we know very little about this painter. He was probably an Austrian who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He specialised in landscapes and genre scenes and repeated the same theme (markets with flowers, vegetables and seafood) many times in different settings. The painting is set by a double frame: an internal narrow, silvered frame decorated with stylised astragal and an external wide, profiled, black frame. It is exhibited in the Northern Corridor on the second floor of the castle.