This painting has been described as ‘pigs’ since the time of George IV; it should perhaps be called ‘the carcasses of two pigs’. The animals are bound and lie without apparent struggle, while a tiny trickle of blood issues from their mouths. The scene is not bloodier still because they would already have been bled carefully into a vessel to make black pudding. They presumably await hanging and cutting into joints.

These processes are illustrated in many seventeenth-century Netherlandish landscapes depicting the season of Winter or the months of November and December. Pig-slaughtering was a prelude to the festive season and the main or only source of meat for most country families at this time. 

There are other examples of beautifully realised depictions of the domestic matter-of-fact in Holland at this time, including Rembrandt’s ‘Slaughtered Ox’ of 1655 (Louvre) and Carel Fabritius’s ‘Goldfinch’ of 1654 (Mauritshuis).

Inscribed to the left: 'C. S. fe / 1657'; the false signature 'P. Potter f.' is also visible.