Composition

Whistler may well have admired the iconic painting The Carcass of Beef (The Slaughtered Ox) (Musée du Louvre) by Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn (1617-1681).

Technique

The Butcher's Shop, Freer Gallery of Art

The rich warm colours, ranging from beige through flesh-pink to blood-red, are painted with vigorous, sketchy brushstrokes, but very thin paint, leaving much of the grey underpaint visible, particularly at left, and also to right of the carcasses. The details of the carcasses are painted with a small pointed brush in nervous squiggles of pinkish-brown and yellow ochre paint.

Conservation History

The Butcher's Shop, photograph, 1980

The Butcher's Shop, Freer Gallery of Art

It is slightly abraded at the edges, particularly at upper right, this being concealed by the frame.

According to Freer Gallery of Art records, it was cleaned and resurfaced in 1922 and 1951, resurfaced and cradled in 1938.

Frame

The Butcher's Shop, Freer Gallery of Art

Grau-style, American-made, dating from 1903. 1