The Bristol artists Samuel Colman and E V Rippingille depicted stereotypes to make social comments in their paintings. In Colman's St James's Fair, an elderly East European Jewish pedlar sells a cheap wedding ring to a couple, for a marriage that will probably end in disaster.

The painting shows clearly the type of wooden box in which pedlars carried their stock. When selling, they carried the box open in front of them. When travelling from place to place, they carried it on their back so they could stride out.