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The Pancake Seller (Das Krapfenweib)
The Pancake Seller (Das Krapfenweib)
The Pancake Seller (Das Krapfenweib)

The Pancake Seller (Das Krapfenweib)

Maker (Austrian, 1724-1796)
Datecirca 1785 - 1790
MediumOil on wood panel
DimensionsStretcher?: 12 1/16 x 14 1/8 in. (30.6 x 35.9 cm)
Framed: 14 7/8 x 16 15/16 in. (37.8 x 43 cm)
Credit LinePurchase, Gift of Viola Manderfeld
Object number1978.185
Object TypePaintings
On View
Not on view
This painting was intended to hang in the best room of a middle-class apartment in Vienna. The emerging Austrian bourgeoisie at the end of the 18th century repeated the artistic preferences of the first great middle-class society, that of the Dutch Netherlands of the 17th century. Particularly popular among genre subjects were the so-called "street cries" of the city, representations of poor, wandering peddlers.

The muted color and dark tonality of the painting, the simple, commonplace setting, and realistic figure types could point to a score of Dutch artists of the previous century. But the blond child in the foreground—protecting his cake from an aggressive dog—is taken directly, but in reverse, from a 1635 etching by Rembrandt.