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Preparing for Christmas (Plucking Turkeys) by Francis William Edmonds

Francis William Edmonds · 1851

Francis William Edmonds painted 'Preparing for Christmas (Plucking Turkeys)' in 1851, a genre scene now in The Met's American Wing. The painting's most telling detail is one most people scroll straight past.

Look to the upper right corner of the barn. Alongside the turkey being plucked on the worktable, already-dressed bird carcasses hang from the rafters. A brazier of scalding water sits ready at the right. The feathers scattered on the ground show this work has been going on for some time. This is not a single family's dinner, it is the labor of a community preparing a feast together.

Edmonds worked as a banker by day and painted by night. He first exhibited under a false name because he feared his art might hurt his banking reputation. His scenes of ordinary American life, plucking turkeys, taking the census, the village peddler, are among the clearest visual records we have of how work actually looked and felt in rural mid-19th-century America, before refrigeration, before supermarkets, when a holiday meal began with your own hands in a cold barn.

What detail do you notice first, the child learning the work, or the hanging birds?

Details

The older man stoops from years of hard labor.
The older man stoops from years of hard labor.
A child stands at the table, learning the work.
A child stands at the table, learning the work.
The hot water in this brazier scalds the skin, loosening the feathers.
The hot water in this brazier scalds the skin, loosening the feathers.
Now look at the upper right corner.
Now look at the upper right corner.
Clapboard construction and worn wood surface place this firmly in rural 19th-century America , a genre painting's sense-of-place anchor.
Clapboard construction and worn wood surface place this firmly in rural 19th-century America , a genre painting's sense-of-place anchor.
Transcript

At first glance, two men pluck a turkey for Christmas. The older man stoops from years of hard labor. A child stands at the table, learning the work. The hot water in this brazier scalds the skin, loosening the feathers. Now look at the upper right corner. More birds already dressed and hanging. This is not one meal. It is a community preparing together.