Adriaen van Ostade: Fishwife (1673; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Even though fishwives had the same reputation of being noisy and unsubtle in the seventeenth century as they have nowadays, the fishwife pictured in this work of Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) is portrayed in an honorable and calm manner. She’s cleaning her fresh ware to sell it on the market, standing in her - traditional looking - stall.
Fish as well as markets were often depicted in Dutch painting. Their popularity as an artistic theme is undoubtedly related to the trend of showing everyday life, so typical for Dutch artists of that era. Salmon was a staple in the European diet of those days; contrary to today, it was the type of food that was affordable even to poor people.
Nevertheless, this picture from the year 1673 has more to tell than one may expect. Besides a realistic impression of a contemporary Haarlem market scene, Van Ostade certainly wanted to present the woman to us as an example of someone who works hard, someone useful to society; thus, this fishwife is a representation of virtue.