Scalding the Hog, Adriaen van Ostade, 1678

brush, h 220mm × w 200mm More details

A largely youthful crowd has gathered to watch two men scrape a pig’s carcass before butchering it. After 1672, Adriaen van Ostade focused increasingly on drawings rather than his more labour-intensive and expensive paintings. Presumably he was responding to the rising demand for cheaper products among the more careful collectors following the disastrous year 1672, when war had tipped the Dutch Republic into an economic crisis.