Vintage Small Cast Iron Pig Doorstop in Pale Yellow with Painted Meadow

Every kitchen needs a pig, and this little one has clearly been standing guard somewhere for years. He is a small vintage cast iron doorstop, painted a soft buttery yellow and planted squarely on a patch of meadow, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

Cast iron doorstops became a fixture of British homes in the Victorian era, and farmyard animals have been firm favourites ever since. Pigs in particular turn up again and again, a nod to the cottage garden and the country kitchen, and to the days when a pig in the yard was part of the household. This one is cast in two halves and hollow at the back, as cast iron doorstops traditionally are, with a solid, satisfying weight for his size.

The painting is what makes him. His round body has a gentle ridged texture under the pale yellow, with a little curly tail and a snub snout. The grass beneath his trotters is painted in soft greens with dots of red and white wild flowers and dark spiky leaves, and it all sits on a shaped black plinth decorated with a raised scrolling band picked out in gold.

He measures 8cm long, 7cm high and 6cm deep and weighs 270g, so he is best suited to holding a light internal door, a cupboard or a pantry door ajar, or working as a paperweight on a desk. The paint has small chips across the body, snout and the edges of the base where the dark iron shows through, the gentle wear of a piece that has been part of family life.

We would stand him on a kitchen windowsill beside a jug of garden flowers, on a dresser shelf among blue and white china, or at the foot of the pantry door. He would make a lovely present for anyone who keeps pigs, loves a farmhouse kitchen or collects little cast iron animals.