This painting may depict a scene in the well-known outdoor market on the rue Mouffetard in Paris. Victor Gilbert painted several works using food markets as a subject, and in fact, at the 1880 Paris Salon he received a second class medal, and the state purchased his painting depicting a corner of the fish market in Les Halles, which is now in the Museum in Lille. At the time, Gilbert's paintings of Les Halles were considered by the critics to be the most impressive examples of Naturalism and Contemporary Realism in painting, with an emphasis on the actuality of the scene they depicted as if viewing a contemporary photograph.