Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor

The subject here seems straightforward: a farm boy presents his produce to a kitchen maid, hoping to make a sale. Yet the scene is coded with symbols that chart a more arousing theme. Eighteenth-century viewers would have seen the parsnips the boy offers to the maid, the bound animals on his donkey, and even the eggs in the basket at left as emblems of lovemaking. This blushing encounter of boy and girl brims with sexual longing, their business exchange symbolizing something far more intense: the triumph of love.

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