Geikie’s art, like that of his friend David Wilkie, was the product of careful observation of human interaction; the nuances of facial expression and physical gesture. This transforms his bystanders into characters in miniature stories which, as in this picture, are seemingly frozen in time. Apart from the fruit vendor herself, the group includes a fishwife from one of the Forth fishing communities whose roaming presence in the streets of Edinburgh was such a conspicuous and distinctive feature of contemporary society. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor David Allan, Geikie made numerous studies of the different characters and the working life of Edinburgh and its surrounding countryside. The Fruit Seller, which was exhibited at the Royal Institution in 1824, is typical of these studies, many of which many were also etched by Geikie. These were published posthumously in 1841.