One of the problems on which iconographical research on the market scenes and kitchen pieces by Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer has concentrated is the issue of the antithetical structure of these pictures. Jan Emmens in particular devoted attention to this problem, pointing out the existence of an antithesis between a broad display of earthly goods and wordly behaviour in the foreground and a religious story painted in the background in a whole series of market scenes and kitchen pieces by Aertsen and Beuckelaer dating from the third quarter of the 16th century. Although Emmens was not the first to comment on this antithesis, he was the first to regard it as a fundamental and common phenomenon in these paintings. In his analysis of paintings with an Ecce Homo scene in the background in particular (fig. 1), he tried to define the basis of their antithetical structure, launching a theory which, surprisingly, has been almost totally ignored until now. He explained the selling of meat, fish and poultry in a market place on the one hand and the Ecce Homo scene on the other as an antithesis between the amor sui of those who live the life of the flesh and wordly desires, and the amor Dei, to which the Passion scene in the background directs the attention of the beholder. He related this antithesis between amor sui and amor Dei to the coneept of the two citizenships defined by St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei, where the citizenship of the world — the civitas terrena — is opposed to the citizenship of the Kingdom of heaven — the civitas Dei. Those who commit themselves to earthly desires and wordly occupations belong to the civitas terrena; those who strive for the Kingdom of Heaven live on earth as pilgrims, detached from the world and destined for their real home, the Heavenly Jerusalem. 

Fig. -1-
Joachim Beuckelaer
Market scene with Ecce Homo
Formerly Schieissheim, Gemaidegalerie

In Emmens' opinion this Augustinian concept forms the basis not only for the antithesis in Ecce homo pictures, but also for other market scenes and kitchen pieces by Aertsen and Beuckelaer which display earthly goods and wordly behaviour in the foreground and a religious story in the background, e.g. Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, Christ and the woman taken in adultery, the Flight into Egypt and the Journey to Emmaus.  

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