Peasants Outside a Farmhouse Butchering Pork
1641
Isack van Ostade (Dutch, 1621–1649)
Oil on panel
The Norton Simon Foundation
Haarlem born Isack van Ostade painted large winter landscapes and smaller intimate genre scenes of which this work is a fine example. The artist often composed his vivid scenes, here a family of peasants at work, around a strong diagonal that separates the earth and sky and leads our eye from the foregroung to the background.
Illuminated by a glowing pool of light, the adults are busy with chores associated with the butchering of a pig. Children, whom Ostade fondly depicted in many paintings, play with the pig’s bladder or watch the goings-on. The quality of observation and anecdotal detail that Ostade included in his treatment of rustic subjects appealed to the increasingly urbanized population of Holland and made a distinctive contribution to Dutch art.
A Revealing Detail
In 2013, this lively scene by Isack van Ostade underwent a routine treatment by Devi Ormond, Associate Conservator of Paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. During her examination, she discovered overpaint covering the man in the lower left corner. Removal of this overpaint, likely added in the 19th or 20th century, dissolved the stool upon which the peasant was sitting, revealing that he was instead defecating onto the ground. Although vulgar to contemporary tastes, this detail by Ostade would have signified to 17th-century viewers the peasant’s innate, humble and uninhibited connection to the earth. Ormond’s discovery was featured in a New York Times article by journalist Jori Finkel.
