Sale of fish on the waterfront

The painting from the collection of the Potocki family, former owners of the Łańcut castle, depicts a scene of the sale of fish on a wharf. The colours of the painting are light, grey-golden-pink, calm, muted. The texture of the canvas is rough, with clearly visible brush strokes. The left side of the picture is occupied by a wharf where a market is being held, the right side by a fragment of the sea with a sailing ship. On the wharf, there are groups of people. In the foreground, a seated woman points with her hand to the fish in baskets in front of her; next to her, a man and a woman are immersed in a conversation regarding trade as they both point to baskets full of fish. Behind them others are busy trading. The white headscarves of the women stand out in the crowd. The scene is set under a sky covered with clouds, the landscape as if before or after a storm. From behind the clouds, the sun peeks out, illuminating the sea, on whose surface a silver glow forms. There are grey clouds, with glimpses of blue, slightly pinkish on the horizon. The wharf is a grey-blue-pinkish colour, wet as it reflects the sky. The painting is signed in the lower left corner “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 specialized in landscapes and genre scenes and repeated the same theme (markets with flowers, vegetables and seafood) many times in different settings – his paintings, such as Flower Sellers on the Pier and Flower Sellers on the Wharf appear at auctions. The painting is set in a double frame: the inner is narrow, silver decorated with stylised astragal and the outer is wide, profiled, black. It is exhibited in the Northern Corridor of the second floor of the castle.