Gerrit Dou's Grocer's Shop (1647; Plate 4) was a novel painting in more ways than one. An interior shop, unlike an outdoor market, was an uncommon pictorial subject in the mid-seventeenth century. The arched masonry window that frames the complex and carefully constructed composition was likewise an unusual device in genre painting before it became a distinctive element in Dou's oeuvre. A strong focused light leads our attention to the standing matronly woman, who is placing grains of pepper onto the balance, and the young maid, who is the other party to the transaction. In the lower left corner, an older woman sits counting coins. Finally, behind the maid is a diminutive male figure who stands near the vanishing point of the oblique perspectival system of the picture. While Dou displays his descriptive artistry in the detailed rendering of individual objects, there is a heightened sense of artifice in the scene. Light emanating from an unseen source within the architectural space selectively illuminates the figures while leaving the surrounding objects in shadows. The pictorial space also looks contrived, as the sides of the table in the center recede sharply to the left, creating an accelerated sense of recession into depth. The line of figures on the left blocks the beholder's view to the back wall and, moreover, the relative sizes of the figures do not completely agree with the perspectival construction established by the foreshortened table. For example, it is unclear where the young man, who has been identified by some as a peculiar self-portrait of Dou, is situated in relation to the young maid or the long table.

Dou's interpretation of the novel subject of a shop, as Elizabeth Honig has pointed out, constitutes a witty commentary on practices in a changing commercial world. Various elements, such as the pepper on the pan of a balance, the butter on the table, and the coins being counted, refer to Dutch commonplaces about value and judgement. The combination of the innovative subject and formal experimentation ultimately draws attention to Dou's technical expertise and witty use of verbal commonplaces.