Loading cart…
No products in the cart.
A Match Seller
Original price was: $518.00.$259.00Current price is: $259.00.
Artist: David Gilmour Blythe
A quiet street scene rendered with unflinching honesty, this hand-painted oil reproduction of A Match Seller by David Gilmour Blythe brings a famous painting of social realism to your wall.
Description
Description
A small figure stands at the edge of a city street, match tray held out, coat drawn tight against weather the picture makes you feel before you can name it. The light is thin and grey, the kind that falls through coal smoke rather than clouds, and it settles on the child without warmth. Around this still centre the street continues its business in loose, dark strokes, so that the eye returns again and again to the one figure who is not moving.
About Match Seller
David Gilmour Blythe painted this scene in the years before and during the American Civil War, when he was working in Pittsburgh and turning an eye trained partly in sign painting and self-taught observation toward the poor, the discarded, and the overlooked corners of urban life. He belonged to no fashionable school and courted no patron, which gives his street subjects an unpolished honesty that painters working for exhibition committees rarely risked. The brushwork here is fast and searching rather than smooth, built up in patches of ochre, soot brown, and pale flesh tone that read as a whole only from a short distance back, a technique closer to caricature drawing than to academic finish.
What holds the composition together is restraint. Blythe gives the child no theatrical gesture and the street no dramatic incident; the pathos comes instead from posture, from the set of small shoulders, from the way the background figures pass without seeing. It is a quiet piece of social observation rather than a staged appeal, and that quietness is part of what has kept it a famous painting within American genre art despite its modest scale and unglamorous subject.
The hand-painted reproduction
The ByMuseum version of this work is built the same way the original was, stroke by stroke in oil rather than laid down by a machine. A trained painter studies the palette Blythe used, the ochres and browns and the cool grey of the sky, and matches them by eye across a primed canvas, letting the brush leave the same kind of broken, searching mark that gives the picture its character. As an oil painting reproduction it carries real paint film, ridges of impasto where the brush loaded and lifted, and a surface that shifts faintly under raking light, none of which a printed reproduction can offer.
- Hand-painted in oil on artist-grade canvas
- Available in multiple sizes to suit your wall
- Arrives gallery-ready for immediate display
- Includes a certificate of authenticity
- Painted to order in 2 to 3 weeks, then delivered in 5 to 7 days
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Each ByMuseum artwork is a hand-painted oil painting reproduction created by trained artists on high-quality cotton canvas. Every piece is reviewed, finished, and packed according to the framing option you select.
Empty walls flatten a room. A classical artwork restores structure and visual hierarchy. One painting defines the space, anchors furniture, and establishes identity.
Delivery up to 25 days
Worldwide shipping included. Each painting is produced to order and safely packed for international transport.
100% secure payment
All payments are encrypted and processed through trusted payment providers.
Authentic hand-painted reproduction
Real brushwork, layered oil paint, and durable pigments on museum-quality canvas.
90-day money-back guarantee
If the result does not meet expectations, return it for a full refund.
Unframed — Rolled in Tube
Your artwork is painted on premium cotton canvas, then shipped safely rolled in a rigid tube with extra blank canvas border — ready for stretching or framing locally.
Framed — Ready to Hang
Select a handcrafted frame and we’ll deliver your painting fully assembled, protected, and ready to hang.
For safe shipping, framing is available up to a maximum size. Larger sizes will automatically disable the frame option.
Stretched Canvas
Choose “Stretched” to receive your canvas mounted on wooden stretcher bars — perfect if you’ll frame it later or display it as-is.
Gallery Wrap
Gallery Wrap is a deeper, 1.5" style stretcher. The canvas wraps around the sides and is stapled on the back for a clean, modern, frameless look.
Insured Express Delivery
We ship with UPS, FedEx, or DHL straight to your door. You’ll receive a tracking number as soon as your order leaves our studio. Typical delivery is 4–5 business days after dispatch; large, framed, or stretched pieces may take longer depending on the safest shipping route.
Unframed canvases are protected with a film, carefully rolled, and secured inside a rigid shipping tube.
Stretched, Gallery Wrapped, and Framed paintings are wrapped, cushioned with foam protection, and boxed for safe transit.
Related products
-
David Gilmour Blythe
Street Urchins
View sizes & framesHand-painted oil paintingOriginal price was: $518.00.$259.00Current price is: $259.00. -
David Gilmour Blythe
Boy Playing Marbles
View sizes & framesHand-painted oil paintingOriginal price was: $518.00.$259.00Current price is: $259.00. -
David Gilmour Blythe
Prospecting
View sizes & framesHand-painted oil paintingOriginal price was: $518.00.$259.00Current price is: $259.00. -
David Gilmour Blythe
Art Versus Law
View sizes & framesHand-painted oil paintingOriginal price was: $518.00.$259.00Current price is: $259.00.
