Slaughtered Pig

ca. 1660–62

Attributed to Caspar Netscher

oil on panel
36.7 x 30 cm
CN-104© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. "Slaughtered Pig." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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Seventeenth-century Netherlandish images of slaughtered oxen and pigs

Comparative Figures

have their roots in medieval depictions of the labors of the months,
specifically November, the peak slaughtering season. The theme wasgiven new life in the mid-sixteenth century through the works of theFlemish painters Pieter Aertsen (1508–75) and Joachim Beuckelaer (ca.
1533–ca. 1574), who incorporated slaughtered and disemboweled
animals in their vivid renderings of abundantly supplied market stalls, andalso explored the theme as an independent motif.[1] The earliest instancesof the motif in the Northern Netherlands come only in the seventeenthcentury, possibly introduced by immigrants from the south. During theearly 1640s, the theme of the slaughtered animal—split, splayed, andsuspended from the rungs of a wooden ladder—was taken up by (amongothers) Adriaen (1610–85) and Isack (1621–49) van Ostade, who typicallysituated the event in the dark and cavernous interior of a barn, stable, orkitchen.[2] A number of artists in Rembrandt’s orbit—Gerbrand van denFig 1. Barent Fabritius,Slaughtered Pig, 1665, oil oncanvas, 101 x 79.5 cm, Museum
Boijmans van Beuningen,Rotterdam, inv. 1214, photo:
Studio Tromp, Rotterdam

Eeckhout (1621–74), Barent Fabritius (1624–73) (fig 1), Nicolaes Maes(1634–93), and Jan Victors (1619–after 1676)—treated the subject during
the 1640s and 1650s, as, of course, did Rembrandt himself, most
famously in his Slaughtered Ox of 1655 in the Musée du Louvre (fig 2).[3]In 1666, even the stylish Amsterdam portrait painter Bartolomeus van derHelst (1613–70) featured the carcass of a pig, flanked by a vegetableseller and a group of children, suspended before a view of Amsterdam’s
Nieuwmarkt.[4] In 1668, Van der Helst’s painting was the inspiration for
Michiel van Musscher’s The Haarlemmerdijk with a Pig on a Stepladder ;[5]interestingly, these last paintings return the theme to the urban market
context developed by Aertsen and Beuckelaer more than a century before.
For obvious reasons, in Dutch genre paintings the motif of the slaughteredox or pig is usually considered as a vanitas allegory.[6] Most seventeenthcentury (and earlier) depictions include one or more children, who inflateFig 2. Rembrandt van Rijn, The
Slaughtered Ox, 1655, oil onpanel, 95.5 x 68.8 cm, Paris,
Musée du Louvre, no. MI 169,
Photo: Gerard Blot, ©RMN-Grand
Palais / Art Resource, NY

the animal’s bladder for use as a toy. This motif is a charmingly mundane
manifestation of Homo bulla, which likens the fragility of human life to adelicate soap bubble. A print in a book of emblems published in 1712shows children playing with an inflated pig’s bladder, accompanied by averse that begins: “How hard you blow, o child of the world! You catchnothing but wind. The world is nothing more than a bladder filled with air”
(fig 3).[7] The slaughtered pig could also represent avarice: folk tradition
equated pigs gorging themselves with the behavior of misers; only after
death was their usefulness revealed (in the form of ample food from the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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former or a substantial inheritance via the latter).[8]The present painting is simply composed, with the spread and eviscerated
carcass displayed frontally at the center and its severed head resting in ashallow wooden tub on a bench to the left. Most of the organs have been
removed from the body, except for the dark kidneys and the anus. Peeringout from behind the carcass is a young boy who blows air through a straw
into the pig’s bladder.
Earlier literature describes The Slaughtered Pig as being signed anddated either 1660 or 1662,[9] but no inscriptions are now visible on thepainting.[10] Although the rustic subject matter aligns with Caspar Netscher’searly

depictionsofbarnandkitchen

scenes—compareforFig 3. Jan Luiken, “De Blaas,”from Des menschen begin,midden en einde (Amsterdam1712), page 46, © 2004, DBNL

example, Chaff Cutter with Woman and Child in the Philadelphia Museumof Art, 1659; or Knife Grinder in Turin (fig 4), dated 1662[11]—the relativelybroad and imprecise painting style is atypical for the artist. Still, theproductions of Netscher’s early career (from the mid-1650s to about 1662)
were highly variable, exploring a range of scale and technique and withevidently sophisticated works sometimes predating those less ambitious indesign or execution.[12] Unless or until a more viable alternative can bepresented, the current attribution of the picture to Netscher can reasonably
be maintained.
-Marjorie E. WiesemanFig 4. Caspar Netscher, The
Knife Grinder, 1662, oil on panel,
43 x 34 cm, Galleria Sabauda,Turin, inv. 67, © 2015, photo
Scala, Florence, courtesy of theMinistero Beni e Att. Culturali© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Slaughtered Pig
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. Joachim Beuckelaer, Slaughtered Pig, 1563, oil on panel, 114 x 83 cm, Wallraf-RichartzMuseum, Cologne, inv. no. WRM 2324.
2. Among many other examples, see: Adriaen van Ostade, Slaughtered Pig, 1643, oil on panel,
61 x 49 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, inv. 1153; andIsack van Ostade, Peasant Shed with a Slaughtered Pig , ca. 1642–43, oil on panel, 48.3 x
39.8 cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, inv. OS I-614. Other artists who depicted the theme
include Egbert van der Poel, Hubert van Ravesteyn, and Renier Covijn.
3. Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Slaughtered Pig, 1646, oil on panel, 47.4 x 38.3 cm,
Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, inv. 37.167; Barent Fabritius, Slaughtered Pig, 1656, oilon canvas, 79.5 x 65.1 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. 819B; Barent Fabritius, Slaughtered Pig, 1665, oil on canvas,
101 x 79.5 cm, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. 1214; Nicolaes Maes,Slaughtered Pig, ca. 1655, oil on canvas, formerly 101.6 x 78.7 cm, private collection(painting has subsequently been cut, eliminating the carcass of the animal); Jan Victors,Slaughtering the Ox, 1647, oil on panel, 85 x 71 cm, private collection; Jan Victors,TheSwine Butcher, 1648, oil on canvas, 79.5 x 99.5 cm, Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam, inv.
SA 8341; and Rembrandt van Rijn, Slaughtered Ox, 1655, oil on panel, 93.5 x 68.8 cm,
Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. M. I. 169. See also Jacques Foucart, Les peintures deRembrandt au Louvre (Paris, 1982), 66–71.
4. Bartolomeus van der Helst, Vegetable Seller and Children with a Pig Suspended from aLadder, 1666, oil on canvas, 201 x 220 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, SaintPetersburg, inv. 867; the vegetable seller is identfied as the artist’s wife, Anna du Pire; see
Herman Colenbrander, “Het ‘groenwyff’ van Bartolomeus van der Helst: Een eerbetoon aanzijn slovende ‘Martha’ en de ‘aemulation van Michiel van Musscher,” inFace Book: Studieson Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries , ed. Edwin Buijsen, CharlesDumas, and Volker Manuth (Leiden, 2012), 397–404.
5. Michiel van Musscher, The Haarlemmerdijk with a Pig on a Stepladder , 1668, oil on canvas,
87 x 75.5 cm, Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam, inv. SA 38126.
6. See Eddy de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)(Amsterdam, 1976), 117–18.
7. “Hoe sterk gy blaast, ô Waerlds Kind! / Gy vangt doch anders niet als wind. / Wat is deWaerld, die het ziet? / Een Blaas yol [sic] wind en anders niet; / Laat daar ‘t onweetende
Kind meê speelen: / Maar dat het wys en grys verstand / Geen voddery houde aan de hand /Om in het kinderspel te deelen.” Jan Luiken, Des menschen begin, midden en einde(Amsterdam, 1712), 46.
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8. Eddy de Jongh, Tot lering en vermaak (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam,1976), 118.
9. As dated 1660: Ausstellung Alte Meister aus Privatbesitz (Exh. cat. Leipzig, Leipziger
Kunstverein) (Leipzig, 1929), no. 79; and Ausstellung Alte Meister aus Mitteldeutschem
Besitz (Exh. cat. Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein) (Leipzig, 1937), 11, no. 52. As dated 1662:
Karl Lilienfeld, “Die Ausstellung Alter Meister aus Leipziger Privatbesitz,” Kunstchronik 26,
no. 9 (November 1914): 113; Eduard Plietzsch, “Hollandischer Bilder des 17. Jahrhunderts
aus Leipziger Privatbesitz,” Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 8 (1915): 49; Eduard
Plietzsch, Holländische und flämische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1960), 60;
Marjorie E. Wieseman, “Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting”(Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1991), 469; and Marjorie E. Wieseman,Caspar Netscherand Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting . Doornspijk, 2002), 316 (noting that signatureand date are not visible in photographs).
10. Information from Technical Summary prepared by Annette Rupprecht.
11. Marjorie

E.

Wieseman, Caspar

NetscherandLate

Seventeenth-CenturyDutchPainting (Doornspijk, 2002), 173–74, nos. 11 and 10, respectively.
12. See Marjorie E. Wieseman, “The Craeyvanger Portraits in Context—Shedding Light on
Caspar Netscher’s Early Career,” Oud Holland 127 (2014): 31–47.

ProvenanceIman Pauw (1715–79), The Hague (his sale, The Hague, 23 November 1779, no. 14 [toAbraham Delfos for 65 florins]).
(Sale, Leiden, 26 August 1788, no. 106 [to Abraham Delfos for 17 florins]).
Jan Kerkhooven, Leiden (his sale, Leiden, 30 July 1798, no. 17; sale, L. Bouman et al.,Leiden, 24 August 1802, no. 36 [for 15 florins]).
Rudolf Brockhaus (1856–1932), Leipzig, by at least 1914; by descent until at least 1937.
Private collection, United States, by 1960 (sale, Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet, New York, 13January 1978, no. 122).
Private collection, Williamstown, Massachusetts, until 1996 [Otto Naumann, Ltd., NewYork].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Exhibition History
Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein, “Ausstellung alter Meister aus Leipziger Privatbesitz,”
November–December 1914, no. 90 [lent by the family of Rudolf Brockhaus].
Leipzig, Museum der Bildende Kunst, “Alte Meister aus Privatbesitz,” 22 September–31
October 1929, no. 79 [lent by the family of Rudolf Brockhaus].
Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein, “Alte Meister aus Mitteldeutschem Besitz,” 13 May–15August 1937, no. 52 [lent by the family of Rudolf Brockhaus].
Albany, Albany Institute of History and Art, “Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in SeventeenthCentury Dutch Art and Life,” 21 September–8 December 2002, no. 34 [lent by Otto
Naumann, Ltd., New York].
Ithaca, Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, “An Eye for Detail: Dutch
Painting from the Leiden Collection,” 20 September 2014–21 June 2015 [lent by the presentowner].

References
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 5:301, no. 477. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches
Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts .
10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Ausstellung alter Meister aus Leipziger Privatbesitz. Exh. cat. Leipzig, Leipziger
Kunstverein. Leipzig, 1914, 9, no. 90.
Lilienfeld, K. “Die Ausstellung Alter Meister aus Leipziger Privatbesitz.” Kunstchronik 26, no.
9 (November 1914): 113–14.
Plietzsch, Eduard. “Hollandischer Bilder des 17. Jahrhundert aus Leipziger Privatbesitz.”
Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 9 (1915): 49, fig. 5.
Alte Meister aus Privatbesitz. Exh. cat. Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein. Leipzig, 1929, no. 79.
Alte Meister aus Mitteldeutschem Besitz . Exh. cat. Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein. Leipzig,
1937, 11, no. 52.
Plietzsch, Eduard. Holländische und flämische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts . Leipzig, 1960,
60.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.”
Ph.D. diss. Columbia University, 1991, 469–70, no. B5.
© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Slaughtered Pig
Page 8 of 8Wieseman, Marjorie E. Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting .
Doornspijk, 2002, 316, no. B5.
Barnes, Donna R. and Rose, Peter G. Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in SeventeenthCentury Dutch Art and Life . Exh. cat. Albany, Albany Institute of History and Art. Albany,
2002, 96–97, no. 34.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular-shaped non-Baltic oak derived froma tree felled between 1655 and 1665, with an earliest creation date of 1661, has bevels on all
four sides.[1] The panel is unthinned and uncradled and has machine tool marks, two paperlabels, and handwritten numerals but no wax collection seals, import stamps or panel maker’s
marks along the reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by paint applied thinly andsmoothly with no use of impasto. No underdrawing or compositional changes are readily
apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2005 and remains
in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Peter Klein’s dendrochronology report,
dated 6 June 2012.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection