Allegory of Water: A Fish Market; and Allegory of Air: A Bird and Poultry Market

Vrancx and his studio returned to the theme of the market throughout his career, and by 1632 he was a well-established artist, whose works were sought-after amongst patrons. These impressive canvases originally belonged to a set of four depicting the elements (water, fire, earth and air). The bustling scenes were evocative not only for their realistic depiction of life, but for the encyclopaedic portrayal of each bird or water-dwelling creature that might be offered at a market. Amongst them mill figures from all walks of life, from ‘the wealthy and simple buyers, the official and unofficial sellers, the fish carrier and the market regulator, the foreign merchant and the local gentleman’ (Honig, op. cit., p. 146). The imagined setting theatrically combines architecture from Vrancx’s native Antwerp with Roman ruins, fountains and churches, presumably influenced by the artist’s time in Italy at the end of the sixteenth century.