English: Szolnok, located on the Theiss River in central Hungary, was an important market center of 11,000 inhabitants in the mid 19th century. Pettenkofen first visited it in 1851, and returned repeatedly over the next 30 years. In this work the sunlight has broken through the cloudy sky to illuminate a colorful marketplace surrounded by low houses with white walls and thatched roofs. On the right, near a wayside cross enclosed by a picket fence, peasants mill about the vegetable stands and wagons. Several piles of large green melons are visible. Livestock forage freely in the dusty terrain. Close to the foreground is a bedraggled gypsy nursing an infant followed by another child.