The Maid

This maid pours blood from a flayed ox’s head as she prepares to make a delicacy known as headcheese. Such paintings of everyday life were popular in late 19th-century France; as the nation experienced rapid industrialization and urbanization, audiences appreciated imagery that romanticized traditional rural life, with its perceived simplicity and virtuousness. François Bonvin regularly executed genre scenes reminiscent of works by 18th-century French artist Jean Siméon Chardin, who also celebrated the quiet dignity of domestic labor.