Il norcino

Pissarro set this in the market square of Pontoise, the small town north-west of Paris where he'd lived for years and still returned to on market days. The young woman slicing fat from a side of bacon was his own niece, Eugénie Estruc, known in the family as Nini, who modelled for him more than once. He painted five such market scenes in the 1880s, drawn to the plain business of buying and selling rather than to anything grand. Look across the stall and you'll see a second woman leaning in, apparently tasting a slice of salami.