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A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Notes

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This small painting on wood was painted in the same year as A Girl Seated outside a House, also in the National Gallery’s collection. The two paintings have several common features. These include a young girl (probably the same model) wearing jewellery, seen in profile on the right of the picture, a town with a church spire and even sunflowers in almost identical positions.

Maris reused many of these elements in another painting, Girl Knitting on a Balcony, Montmartre (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague). Painted two years later in 1869, this larger picture, showing the girl full length, also includes a caged bird.

Although Maris belonged to The Hague School of realist painters, it is tempting to see a symbolic aspect to the image of a caged bird (such as loss of freedom) or perhaps a reference to eighteenth-century portraits of girls with birds by French artists such as Greuze.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage

Date

about 1867

Medium

Oil on mahogany

Measurements

H 32.6 x W 20.8 cm

Accession number

NG3261

Acquisition method

Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917

Work type

Painting

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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