A man in Turkish dress weighing rhubarb for sale. Gouache.

He seems to be selling blocks of some friable prepared food which he is selling by weight, and he has a spare supply wrapped up in a white cloth that is kept in the front flap of his jacket. The produce is probably rhubarb: he resembles other depictions of "the historic 'Turkish' London rhubarb sellers. Many are pictured in 19th century collection of 'London cries'. There is an interview with one in Mayhew's London poor and labour. The informant along with similar sellers before him were all from the same North African Jewish community ... The rhubarb seems have been sold in lumps of root in which form it was imported (but not from Turkey by this [i.e. Mayhew's] time)."--information supplied to the Wellcome Library by Gareth Evans, 2015