Costermonger Costermonger Costermonger, coster, or costard is a street seller of fruit and vegetables, in London and other British towns. The term is derived from the words "costard" (a now extinct medieval variety of large, ribbed apple) and "monger" (seller), and later came to be used to describe hawkers in general. Some historians have pointed out that a hierarchy existed within the costermonger class and that while costermongers sold from a handcart or animal-drawn cart, mere hawkers carried their wares in a basket. Costermongers met a need for rapid food distribution from the wholesale markets (e.g., in London; Smithfield for meat,
Basket of Fruit (Caravaggio) Life with Fruit" (c. 1603), a painting which John Spike identifies as "the source of all subsequent Roman still-life paintings." Basket of Fruit (Caravaggio) Basket of Fruit (c.1599) is a still life painting by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610), which hangs in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Ambrosian Library), Milan. It shows a wicker basket perched on the edge of a ledge. The basket contains a selection of summer fruit: ... a good-sized, light-red peach attached to a stem with wormholes in the leaf resembling damage by oriental fruit moth (Orthosia hibisci). Beneath it is a single bicolored