Traders in a Roman Marketplace

Although he trained as a history painter, Pierre executed a number of 'Bambochades' after his return to Paris from Rome in 1740, and exhibited several of these peasant genre scenes at Salons throughout the decade. A drawing by Pierre (reproduced in D. Aaron, J.B.M. Pierre, Cahiers du dessin franais, no. 9, fig. 38) for an Allegory of Winter (1749) depicts, in reverse, the same figure of a boy blowing on the flames of the stove that is found in the foreground of the present painting.

The present painting is probably the pendant to Scne de march dans des ruines romaines, a painting by Pierre that sold some years ago with an attribution to Jeaurat (Sotheby's, Monaco, June 22, 1985, lot 163). The latter canvas, with comparable dimensions (71 x 90.5cm.) and a compatible composition to the present painting, closely matches the livret description of the March la porte de Tivoly, exhibited by Pierre at the Salon of 1745; a similar dating can be presumed for the present work.