The Fair Exchange, 1881, oil on canvas, Gift of The Procter & Gamble Company, 2003.88

Verbal Description

Hello, my name is Jordan Rolfes. I am a Gallery Attendant at the museum. I will be reading the verbal description for The Fair Exchange, which appears in Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

Painted in 1881, The Fair Exchange is in oil on canvas. It was a gift of The Proctor & Gamble Company. Its accession number is 2003.88

The Fair Exchange measures 35 inches by 28 inches. This painting takes place along a street in Paris, evident from the French posters hanging in the background behind the central figures. Also, in the background, we see a line of trees, a statue of an angel, and an iron fence with floral decoration. The two subjects are in the center foreground. To the left is a young man, likely in his teens, slightly turned away from the viewer. He is kneeling on his left leg; his right leg bent with his foot on the ground. He has short-clipped brown hair. He looks up and smiles at his companion. He wears brown pants, a red shirt, worn at the right elbow, and a vest. He is looking at a young woman, also likely in her teens. She wears a traditional Norwegian dress. She has shoulder-length brown hair pulled partially back in a red scarf. She is holding a basket of flowers in the crook of her left arm. Her right leg is bent, and her foot is propped on top of the shoeshine bench in front of her. Her right hand rests on her knee. The young man is polishing her boot. In front of the shoeshine bench is a brush, the young man’s hat, holding a floral posey, and a can of shoe polish.

Label Text

Hello, my name is Jordan Rolfes. I am a Gallery Attendant at the museum. I will be reading the label for The Fair Exchange, which appears in Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial.

Painted in 1881, The Fair Exchange is in oil on canvas. It was a gift of The Proctor & Gamble Company. Its accession number is 2003.88

Youthful flirtation and urban street commerce are central themes in The Fair Exchange, which Mosler both painted and set in Paris. A bootblack trades a shoeshine for a posy the flower-seller has dropped into his hat. The girl’s clothing identifies her as an immigrant, as she is wearing a traditional costume from the Telemark region of Norway called a bunad. Why Mosler painted a Norwegian flower-seller on the streets of Paris is a mystery, but we may be certain he was attracted to her picturesque attire.

Mosler wrote on one of the nearby drawings that The Fair Exchange was "painted to order for Knoedler/New York." Knoedler was a prominent art dealer who commissioned paintings from Mosler to sell to collectors in the United States, thus widening the artist’s reputation. The company also may have distributed the artist’s works through lithographic reproductions.

Back to the Audio Tour