Following in a long Flemish painting tradition, David Teniers II made a specialty of depictions of kitchens, larders, and stables with foodstuffs. Often butchered animals figure prominently in these scenes; compare, for example, the Interior with Butchered Ox of 1647, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Inv. no. 1889.500), and the Man with Butchered Sheep, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, (Inv. no. 593). In the present painting the man in the white hat is either preparing a meal or possibly salting the meat to preserve it. Similarly clad figures treat food in other works by the artist; compare, for example, the painting A Kitchen engraved by R.E.M. Lépicie (J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné, etc., III, 1831, p. 322, no. 228).

Sold with a photocertificate from W. R. Valentiner dated March 30, 1945.

We are grateful to Margret Klinge for confirming the attribution (verbal communication, July 1994)