A Pig's Carcass

In the Dutch Republic there was no way to keep meat through the winter, so a family fattened one pig all summer and killed it in the cold of late autumn, when the air itself would keep the meat from spoiling. November was even called the slaughter month. That is the moment van Ostade caught here. The pig hangs head down from a ladder, slit open and cleaned out, its belly held wide by a short stick so the carcass can cool in the draught of a thatched barn. He and his brother Isaac had been painting this scene since the early 1640s. For a poor household there was nothing grim in it, rather something reassuring, the whole winter's eating secured in a single animal. Around it lies the usual clutter of the barn, straw and tubs and shadow.