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The market was an often-studied subject in the paintings of rural life of the era. Classic representations, however, differed vastly from those of Pissarro: a viewer need only glance at the very traditional Trayer’s The Fabric Market (1886), which was accepted into the conservative Salon of the time, to notice the difference. Not only is the format a lot more horizontal and structured than in Pissarro's paintings of marketplaces, but the peasants themselves are dressed in almost caricatural provincial clothing – exactly the type of clothing that a member of the upper classes or of the bourgeoisie would imagine the peasants wearing. Most significant, however, is the theatrical arrangement of the painting, which creates an obvious distance between the viewer and the peasants themselves. This distance, coupled with the overly stylized manner of dress of the peasants, produce an image of a marketplace which is far removed from reality. Clearly, Trayer, very much unlike Pissarro, distances himself from the peasants, and takes the view a member of the bourgeoisie might take.
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Even Piette’s Place du Petit Martroy, Pointoise, market day (1876), a painting which was shown at the Impressionist exhibit in 1877, doesn’t truly engage in true market life. Indeed, there is again a large distance between the viewer and the peasants. Although these peasants aren’t, like those portrayed in Trayer’s The Fabric Market, dressed in exaggeratedly provincial clothing, they are only far-off figures which the viewer clearly can’t engage or identify with. Thus, unlike Pissarro, both these paintings offer a view of the peasants which is either an idealized one (as is the case for Trayer’s The Fabric Market) or an apathetic, removed one (as is the case for Piette’s market scene).