Markets and fairs in the 1800s

Join us to discover the weekly markets and regional fairs that arose in Spain throughout the 1800s.

Market place: Spanish custums (1842)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

Romantic Spanish prints 

Many of the prints with market and fair scenes that illustrate 19th-century publications were composed by travelling artists, mostly French and English, who arrived in Spain influenced by the ideas of Romanticism.

Market place. Carmona (1837)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

These "impertinent onlookers" sought out monumental buildings, picturesque corners, legendary characters and ancestral customs to illustrate their publications. The picture shows the Carmona market in Seville.

The Market-Place, Segovia (1873)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

Artists such as Edward Hawke Locker (1777-1849), David Roberts (1796-1864) and Harry Fenn (1845-1911) reproduced "azogues" and market squares in cities such as Madrid, Segovia, Valladolid, Valencia, Seville and Granada.

Market place: Spanish custums (1842)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

With them, the most famous of the Spanish Romantic landscape painters, the Galician Jenaro Pérez de Villaamil (1807-1854), recognised as the leading representative of Spanish Romantic landscape painting.

Woman selling vegetables with a donkey (1809-1817)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

In some cases, the old free markets are transformed into fair days, adjusting to the agricultural calendar of the surrounding area, and in others, we will see new fairs in which the commercial character coexists with new forms of leisure and entertainment.

Water Carrier from Madrid (Porteur d'eau de Madrid) (Circa1860)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

Aguador de Madrid, Collection de Costumes des diverses provinces d'Espagne, ca. 1860

The market of the San Miguel Square (1874)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

La Ilustración Española y Americana       

In La Ilustración Española y Americana, the most important illustrated publication of its time, we find numerous costumbrista images such as street markets in which popular types and street vendors in their traditional costumes are portrayed.

These prints were produced by highly regarded artists. Here we can see the work of the painter Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1848-1921), director of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and of the Prado Museum.

The Mostenses square market at Christmas (Circa1880)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

Or here is a print of Madrid's Mercado de los Mostenses at Christmas, by the woodcutter and engraver Arturo Carretero (1852-1903), one of the most important woodcutters in Spain at the time.

The Rastro market in Madrid (1880)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

We can also find genre scenes such as this one of the El Rastro market in Madrid, drawn by the painter Domingo Muñoz and engraved by Andrés Ovejero around 1880.

Bird market in San Andrés square (Circa1883)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

This picture shows a popular scene with traditional characters in the bird market in the Plaza de San Andrés, Madrid, around 1883.

Pig market in León (Circa1883)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

This engraving by Tomás Carlos Capuz (1834-1899) shows the pig market during the November fair in León, around the time of Saint Martin's Day.

Baskets seller (1861)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

   El Museo Universal       

The Museo Universal, a magazine published in Madrid between 1857 and 1869 which contained a considerable number of plates and engravings, published in 1861 a series of illustrations about the street trade in Madrid with drawings by Ortego and engravings by Alva, Still, Severini and Capuz.

Woman selling oranges and lemons on the street (1861)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

Who wants oranges and limes! Sweet oranges and lemons!

Turkey market in Madrid (1891)Museum of the Fairs Foundation - Simón Ruiz Archive

   Illustration Française       

In the Illustration Française, a French weekly magazine published between 1843 and 1944, we also find examples of popular Spanish markets, as in the case of this print showing the turkey market in Madrid, close to Christmas.

Credits: Story

Markets and fairs in the 1800s

Museum of the Fairs, 26 October 2017 - 7 January 2018
Learn more about this exhibition at this link

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.

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