In this densely packed late work, Dou fuses realism and artifice. A naturalistic, light-filled Dutch grocer’s shop is seen through a beautifully contrived stone frame, with fictive relief in the style of seventeenth-century sculptor François Duquesnoy, known for his portrayals of putti. Objects are conveniently arranged along the stone ledge in the foreground, seeming to lean out of the painting and into the real world. It is as if the painting is itself a shop window.

Acquired by George IV in 1817, when Prince Regent