Pig Feeding from a Bowl thumbnail 1
Pig Feeding from a Bowl thumbnail 2
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Not on display

Pig Feeding from a Bowl

Dummy Board
1750-1800 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Dummy boards are life-size, flat, wooden figures painted and shaped in outline to resemble figures of servants, soldiers, children, and animals. The taste for using illusionistic painted figures as a form of house decoration probably originated in the trompe l’oeil, or life-like interior scenes painted by Dutch artists in the early 17th century. Dummy boards continued to be produced into the 19th century. They were placed in corners and on stairways to surprise visitors, or in front of empty fireplaces in the summer. Most were made by professional sign-painters, who also produced the hanging street signs prevalent until the late 18th century.

Animals – mostly cats and dogs – were popular subjects for dummy boards. This unusual figure of a piglet feeding from a bowl has been angled to slope away from the spectator so that the bowl appears horizontal.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitlePig Feeding from a Bowl (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Oil on wood
Brief description
Dummy board, pig feeding from a bowl, British 1750-1800
Physical description
Life-size image of a piglet drinking from a bowl,with snout and front trotters in the bowl, standing on a green ground painted on a wooden board cut to shape.
Dimensions
  • Height: 25.5cm
  • Width: 46cm
  • Upright (though leaning slightly back) in display position depth: 16cm
taken from catalogue
Style
Object history
Puchased 1926. Modern copies of this figure were sold in the Museum shop in the 1980s. Replicas also made by Ben Walsh for 'Somerset Country Furniture', Ilchester, on sale in Harrods, March 1989.
Subjects depicted
Summary
Dummy boards are life-size, flat, wooden figures painted and shaped in outline to resemble figures of servants, soldiers, children, and animals. The taste for using illusionistic painted figures as a form of house decoration probably originated in the trompe l’oeil, or life-like interior scenes painted by Dutch artists in the early 17th century. Dummy boards continued to be produced into the 19th century. They were placed in corners and on stairways to surprise visitors, or in front of empty fireplaces in the summer. Most were made by professional sign-painters, who also produced the hanging street signs prevalent until the late 18th century.

Animals – mostly cats and dogs – were popular subjects for dummy boards. This unusual figure of a piglet feeding from a bowl has been angled to slope away from the spectator so that the bowl appears horizontal.
Bibliographic reference
Graham, Clare. Dummy Boards and Chimney Boards. Shire Album 214, Aylesbury: Shire Publications Ltd, 1988. 32 p., ill. ISBN 085263921X.
Collection
Accession number
W.81-1926

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Record createdJune 29, 2007
Record URL
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