Winter Scene with a Man Killing a Pig 

Editor: Here we have "Winter Scene with a Man Killing a Pig", an oil painting attributed to David Teniers the Younger. There’s such a stillness in the winter landscape, except, of course, for the rather brutal scene suggested by the title! What catches your eye in this piece? Curator: I’m immediately drawn to the material realities of this image. The painting’s subject – the slaughter of a pig – highlights the direct, often unseen labor involved in food production for 17th-century life. What do you notice about where and how this work may have been consumed? Editor: Well, the scene depicts a community engaged in everyday life – ice skating, gathering, and, yes, preparing food. I suppose it would have been for display in a home, perhaps? Curator: Precisely. Consider where in the home and how the imagery speaks to ideas around domesticity and consumption at this time. Genre paintings like these offer insight into the relationship between labor, material resources, and social hierarchies within a specific context. What else do you observe about the materiality of daily life represented here? Editor: Thinking about it that way, even the ice becomes a surface for labor and leisure. And the buildings… they show the infrastructure needed to sustain a community, right down to the materials they’re built from? Curator: Yes! The materials of buildings and clothes show the complex trade networks and labor needed for the lives represented. What kind of statement could that reality make to its 17th century audience? Editor: I see what you mean! Looking at it through the lens of materials and labor makes the painting much more than just a charming winter scene. It’s about where things come from, how they're made, and what that says about society. Thank you! Curator: And thank you for your insight! Reflecting on how essential materials inform not just survival but also create social meaning adds new significance to our understanding of art history.