Meat Haulers from 1884 is an oil on canvas painting by Victor Gabriel Gilber, a French artist who lived from 1847 to 1933. It is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux collection, and its registration number is Bx E 817.
Working on the grand scale typical of the Paris Salon, the premier annual art exhibition in France, Victor Gabriel Gilbert depicts three workers moving a side of beef beneath Les Halles’ main pavilions. The neighborhood surrounding Les Halles had been the site of violent uprisings in Paris, and authors frequently used descriptions of animal carcasses as metaphors for revolutionaries’ corpses. The men here seem earnest in their labors, and Les Halles’ arches behind them seem to suggest a stabilizing social structure, in addition to its useful physical architecture. Gilbert frequently depicted the market during the 1870s and 1880s.
Victor Gabriel Gilbert (French, 1847–1933), Meat Haulers, 1884, oil on canvas, Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux, Bx E 817
