This is one of 12 small pictures that together show the 'labours of the months' -- the activities that take place each month throughout the farming year. In what we believe is the final painting of this series, a man wearing a white apron and holding a knife slaughters a grey pig by slitting its throat. The butcher kneels on the pig and holds its snout shut to stop it struggling. It looks as though the pig's trotters have also been tied. Blood flows from the red gash in the pig's neck into a ceramic dish on the ground. The pig seems to be lying on a wooden box or block outside a simple brick building, which may be the same one we see in the months of January and July. In cycles of the labours of the months, slaughtering pigs is traditionally associated with December and feasting.