The Kermesse of St. George, by Pieter Brueghel The Younger (1628)

These days, many contemporary art fairs are suited and booted affairs. Exclusive, snooty events, involving only the higher echelons of the culturati. By the time the fair opens to the public, most of the work has purposefully been sold in the run up. Art fairs can seem like social soirées for collectors-only ‘in the know’. 

As far back as the 17th Century, fairs in the Netherlands were filled with stalls selling art. John Evelyn visited Rotterdam in 1641, where by chance he went to the town’s annual fair. He was taken aback by the amount of art he saw for sale -

“especially Landscips, and Drolleries, as they call those clownish representations. [...] The Reason of this store of pictures and their cheapenesse proceede from their want of Land, to employ their Stock; so as ’tis an ordinary thing to find, a common Farmor lay out two, or 3,000 pounds in this Commodity, their houses are full of them, and they vend them at their Kermas’es to very greate gaines.”

Peter Mundy, who travelled to Amsterdam in 1640, had also commented on the prolific amount of paintings he saw around him. He noticed that most locals strove to

“adorne their houses, especially the outer or street roome, with costly peeces, Butchers and bakers not much inferiour in their shoppes, which are Fairely sett Forth, yea many tymes blacksmithes, Coblers etts., will have some picture or other by their Forge and in their stalle. Such is the generall Notion, enclination and delight that these Countrie Native(s) have to Paintings.”

These ‘kermis’ or ‘kermesses’ were fayres for local communities, where art was sold next to fruit and vegetables - art was placed among other fare, to be enjoyed by the local communities. Art was not a hushed and sober affair. Such fayres were boisterous and fun, a day out to be enjoyed by the whole family.