The slaughtered pig
The slaughtered pig (original title: Interieur met een opengespalkt varken op de leer ) is the title of two paintings by the Dutch painter Barent Fabritius . The first depiction from 1656 with the dimensions 97 × 64 cm belongs to the collection of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie . The second version is owned by the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam . It was created around the year 1665 and measures 100 × 80 cm. Both pictures are painted in oil on canvas and show genre scenes with a slaughtered domestic pig . The depicted subjects are considered vanitas motifs and offer various possibilities for interpretation, in which the transience of all earthly life is in the foreground.
Two variations of a motif
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| The slaughtered pig |
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| Barent Fabritius , around 1656 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 97 × 64 cm |
| State museums in Berlin , picture gallery |
Fabritius painted the motif of a slaughtered pig in two versions. The version kept in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie shows the brightly lit animal in the center of the picture. The pig, cut open on its stomach, is hung upside down on a ladder with its hind feet up. There is a copper pot under the pig, which is suitable for collecting blood dripping down. Dark spots on the reddish tiles of the floor near the pot could indicate that blood has dripped down. The ladder is leaning against a light wall, seen slightly from the side, which takes up large areas of the right half of the picture. The shadow cast by the pig and the ladder can clearly be seen on this wall, which gives the scene an additional drama. To the right of the pig is a little girl in front of the wall. It wears a white floor-length apron and the dark sleeves of a top can be seen underneath. Her blonde hair, combed into a center parting, is partially hidden under a hood, some curly strands fall sideways forwards. Her face has light skin with slightly reddened cheeks. Her eyes, wide open, look at the dead pig. While she is grasping her apron with her left hand, she is holding the puffed-up pig's bladder in her right. On the left-hand side, the scene opens into a dark side room, which is marked above by a curved wall arch. There are three more people at the transition to this room. At a table sits a woman who is busy with meat in a wide, shallow bowl in front of her. The woman is wearing a gray dress, her lap is covered by a half-length white apron or a correspondingly large cloth. Two pearl earrings indicate a certain wealth of women. Between the woman and the hung pig stands another child who is about a head smaller than the other child. She wears a dark dress with a yellowish slip. The hair is also tucked under a hood. The child's gaze does not go to the pig, but looks behind the animal - possibly to the pig's bladder in the hand of the girl standing on the right. Behind the seated woman in the dark is a man smoking a pipe. Only his face, one hand and the pipe are recognizable. The Berlin picture shows the heavily worn signature and date "B Fabritius 1656" on the wall on the right.
|
| The slaughtered pig |
|---|
| Barent Fabritius , around 1665 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 100 × 80 cm |
| Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum , Rotterdam |
The second version of the picture is in the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam. On the lower rung of the ladder the painting bears the signature and the incomplete date "B. Fabritius 165", which for a long time led to a date of 1652. Today the museum gives 1665 as the year of origin. According to the new dating, this version would have been made later than the picture in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. The picture of Rotterdam shows a clear dichotomy. In the left half of the picture, the pig, again cut open on its stomach, is leaning against a ladder. It is surrounded by various objects, such as a rag below the head, an earthenware pot with a mixing spoon in the right foreground, behind it a broom leaning against the back wall and a wooden bucket standing in the shade under a bench. Behind the pig, a brown cat, lying on the bench, looks out to the left of the picture. The right side of the picture is reserved for human actors. In the front two small children are absorbed in playing with a pig's bladder. You have sat down at an improvised table consisting of an upturned basket with a short board on top. The child kneeling in front of the table seems to be in the process of inflating the pig's bladder that has been placed on the board, while the child behind the board is holding onto the hollow body, which is already filled with some air. In front of the children lies a large hat on the tiled floor, which tilts to the side like a small sack. To the rear, the scenery extends through an arch delimited with bricks into an adjoining room, at the end of which only little daylight falls through a grille and an open door. Further ahead on the right edge there is an open fireplace with a large copper kettle hanging over it. Several people have gathered around the fire. Two male figures - perhaps father and son - sit against the wall and each smoke from a pipe. The older one wears a large, wide-brimmed hat and pulls on a bright long pipe, while the slightly smaller boy has his shorter pipe clamped in the side of his mouth. The two smokers take little notice of the three female figures who go about their business around a table. Behind the table, a woman in striking red and white clothes is busy with the meat in the large bowl in front of her. She may be preparing pig intestines for sausage-making. Such intestines are already hanging on a string to dry above her. A girl crouches in front of the table near the fireplace and stirs something in a small pot. Another girl approaches the fireplace from the left and holds a bowl with a spoon in her hands. In contrast to the Berlin version, no person is looking at the slaughtered pig in the Rotterdam image. Here the pig takes up large parts of the picture, but has moved to the edge and is less illuminated. The people relate to one another in their actions; a prominent position, like the single girl in the Berlin version, is missing in the painting in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Old Dutch paintings of animal slaughter and their iconography
Animal slaughter, as described by Fabritius in his two paintings, occurs repeatedly as a motif in Dutch painting of the 17th century. Such descriptions of everyday scenes have models in the monthly pictures , which have shown the rural working world since the Middle Ages. Animal slaughter often appears as a topic for the months of November or December. In the church of Santa Maria del Castello in Mesocco , Switzerland, there is a mural by Christoforo and Nicolao da Seregno , which shows a pig slaughtered for the month of November. The depiction of the animal hung by its feet resembles the two slaughtered pigs in the paintings by Fabritius. In the 16th century attacked Pieter Bruegel the Elder in his series of seven virtues an animal slaughtered for the image Prudence ( The Wisdom ) on. Slaughtering is shown here, alongside other activities such as collecting wood, as preparation for winter. This stockpiling can iconographic be read as a meaningful and thus wise action. Subsequent generations shared this view. In the 18th century, the Dutch poet Hubert Korneliszoon Poot described autumn slaughter as a sensible act: “Thans doodt en kerft zijn slachtbijl rund en zwijn; die helpen dan de kille winter voeden. ”(analogously Now his butcher's ax kills and cuts cattle and pigs; they then help to feed the [people in] cold winter ). Behind a biblical reference may be seen about the interpretation of dreams of Pharaoh by Josef ( gene 41 EU ). This is followed by seven productive years, seven years with hunger. According to this, in the figurative sense, the pigs in Fabritius pictures were fattened in the productive summer and autumn months and slaughtered at the end of the year in order to stock up enough food with the meat in the following agriculturally low-yield period of winter and spring. Mostly slaughtered pigs are shown in the paintings, but cows and oxen are also repeated motifs. One of the best-known works is Rembrandt's The Slaughtered Ox ( Louvre , Paris) from 1655. He staged the animal in his typical light and dark painting and, like Fabritius in the Berlin version, placed it in the center of the picture. Since Rembrandt and Fabritius knew each other, a mutual influence is possible in these pictures. As early as 1566, Martin van Cleve created the painting Eviscerated Ox ( Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna). Also in this description are the children playing with the bubble and the busy woman at the basket. The man is shown here as a drinker, while Martin van Cleve chose a dog for the animal staff, which is matched by the cat in the Rotterdam picture by Fabritius. In Abraham van den Hecken's picture The Slaughtered Cattle ( Rijksmuseum Amsterdam ) from the 17th century, people are busy in the background in a similar way to the animal slaughter by Fabritius. Abraham van der Hecken also shows a smoking man, children playing with animal bladders and a woman who is busy at the table with meat in a basket. While the woman goes about her work virtuously, the man indulges in the bad habit of smoking. The fleeting pleasure is also a symbol of the short lifespan of humans, as a reminder to spend life doing meaningful things.
Christoforo and Nicolao Seregno:
Monthly picture November
around 1560
Pieter Bruegel the Elder:
Prudentia ( The Wisdom )
around 1561–1562
Rembrandt van Rijn:
The slaughtered ox
1655
Abraham van den Hecken:
The slaughtered cattle
around 1635–1655
Marten van Cleve:
Eviscerated ox
1566
In the paintings, the slaughtered cows, cattle and pigs are mostly dismantled and hung on a ladder. The painter Jan Victors shows in The Pig Slaughter (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam) a variant in which the animal has already been taken from the ladder. This picture also shows children playing with a pig's bladder. This motif is part of a series of Dutch pictures with battle scenes. For example, the children with the pig bladder appear in several paintings by Isaac van Ostade , including Slaughtered Pig in a Stable ( Museum Jan Cunen , Oss), Pig Slaughter ( Museum of Fine Arts , Budapest) and Cutting up the Pig ( Palais des beaux-arts de Lille ). But other painters such as Michiel van Musscher in his picture The Pig at the Ladder and View of the Haarlemmerpoort ( Amsterdam Museum ) depicted children with a pig's bladder. The carefree play with a kind of forerunner of the modern balloon can be seen as an age-appropriate pastime for children; but there are also other possible interpretations. The shape of the bubble filled with air is sometimes compared with the globe. In the 18th century, the poet Jan Luyken wrote about a picture of a boy playing with an animal bubble: “Wat is de Waereld, die het ziet? Een Blaas vol wind en different niet. ”(Analogously: What is the world that he sees? A bubble full of wind and nothing else. ) This can be understood as a warning not to spend our earthly existence with useless actions. As quickly as the air can escape from the bladder, life can end as quickly. The finiteness of earthly life is present in all paintings with the motif of a dead animal. The slaughtered animal on a wooden ladder also shows parallels with Christ on the cross. This has Hendrick ten Oever in his painting The slaughtered pig ( Stedelijk Museum Zwolle particularly clearly underlined), where he painted alongside a slaughtered pig, a white cross on the dark wall.
Jan Victors:
The pig slaughter
1648
Isaac van Ostade:
Slaughtered Pig in a Stable
1642
Isaac van Ostade:
Pig slaughter
1664
Michiel van Musscher:
The pig on the ladder and view of the Haarlemmerpoort
1668
Hendrick ten Oever:
The slaughtered pig
around 1670
The connection between the slaughtered animal and the end of human life can also be found in contemporary literature of the 17th century. In the widespread Groote comptoir almanach of 1667, the “Slachtmaand” (month of slaughter) November is illustrated with a drawing that shows a pig hung on a ladder, as can also be seen in the paintings by Fabritius. A verse admonishes the righteous way of life of people and their finite existence (original / analogous translation):
“Ghy die naer u welbeagen
Os en Swijn en Kalf doet slaen;
Denckt hoe ghy ten Jongsten Dage
Voor Godts Oordeel sult. "
"You, the
ox and pig and calf beaten to death for your comfort .
Think about the last day
Before God's judgment you should stand."
Provenances and Attribution
The painting in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie was acquired for the museum in Paris in 1879 by the art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer for 1,800 francs (equivalent to 2,171.93 marks ). The picture was initially considered a work by Nicolaes Maes , but this was questioned as early as 1883. A false signature on the boiler led to an attribution to Pieter de Hooch from 1906 to 1921 . The painting has been considered a work by Barent Fabritius since 1931, which is also indicated by the signature on the wall.
The Rotterdam painting came to the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in 1935 as a picture by Barent Fabritius. It was previously owned by the London art dealer Arnot Galleries from 1929 to 1935. The purchase was made possible by funds from the Rembrandt Association .
literature
- Jan Baptist Bedaux: Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw . Exhibition catalog, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1976.
- Jan Luyken: The people begin, midden en einde: vertoonende het kinderlyk bedryf en aanwasch, in eenenvyftig constant figures, met goddelyke spreuken en stichtelyke verzen . Houttuyn, Amsterdam 1772.
- Daniël Pont: Barent Fabritius, 1624-1673 . Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert, Utrecht 1958.
- Gillis Joosten Saeghman: Groote comptoir almanach . Tot Hoorn voor Gerbrandt Martensz, Amsterdam 1667.
- Maria A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen: Dichter en boer, Hubert Korneliszoon Poot, zijn leven, zijn poems . Bakker, Amsterdam 2009, ISBN 978-90-351-3341-9 .
- Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie Berlin (Ed.): Catalog of the paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries. Century . Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 1975, ISBN 3-7861-6196-8 .
- Tilmann von Stockhausen: Gemäldegalerie Berlin, the history of its acquisition policy 1830–1904 . Nicolai, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87584-769-5 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Daniël Pont: Barent Fabritius, 1624-1673 , pp. 117-118.
- ↑ Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie Berlin (Ed.): Catalog of the paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries. Century , p. 152.
- ^ Daniël Pont: Barent Fabritius, 1624-1673 , p. 118.
- ↑ Interior with an open-split varken op de empty. In: museum boijmans. Retrieved February 12, 2018 (Dutch).
- ^ Daniël Pont: Barent Fabritius, 1624-1673 , p. 118.
- ^ Jan Baptist Bedaux: Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw , 117.
- ↑ Maria A. Schenkeveld-van der Dussen: Poet en boer, Hubert Korneliszoon Poot, zijn leven, zijn poems , S. 442, respectively.
- ^ Jan Baptist Bedaux: Tot lering en vermaak: Betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw , 117.
- ↑ Jan Luyken: Des Menschen begin, midden en einde , p. 46.
- ^ Tilmann von Stockhausen: Gemäldegalerie Berlin, the history of their acquisition policy 1830–1904 , p. 265.
- ↑ Information on the painting on the website of the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis .
- ↑ Information about the painting on the website of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen .