The Netherlands played an important part in the salt trade. Salt was essential for preserving meat, fish and vegetables. This picture shows in the left foreground men digging salt from the saltpans. Beside them, on the wheelbarrows, lie huge chunks of salt. Unrefined salt was imported from Spain, Portugal, the Cape Verde Islands and Curaçao, Bonaire and St Maarten. This painting probably shows the saltdigging on one of these islands. In Amsterdam the blocks of salt were stored and refined in the warehouses that lay opposite Realen Island.