Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Sir David Wilkie, 1785–1841, British
Title:
The Pedlar
Date:
1814
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
23 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches (59.7 x 49.5 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1986.17
Gallery Label:
The Scottish painter Sir David Wilkie established his reputation by creating closely observed scenes of British life during a productive decade following his move to London in 1805. His small pictures, painted in emulation of seventeenth-century Dutch masters, such as David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690), created a sensation and helped make Wilkie one of the most admired painters of his generation. This example represents a Scottish peddler in an English cottage trying to sell his wares, mostly bonnets and textiles. The man in the window reaches reluctantly into his pocket to pay for the cloth his wife desires to buy. Wilkie painted this picture for his friend and physician, Dr. Matthew Baillie, requesting it back for loan in 1832 so that he could have it engraved. Selling prints after genre scenes like this one provided Wilkie with a reliable income that required less effort than his initial business of painting portraits. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016