The Goldfinch in art

April 22, 2023
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The Goldfinch (Dutch: Het puttertje) is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Carel Fabritius of a life-sized chained goldfinch. Signed and dated 1654, it is now in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, Netherlands. A common and colourful bird with a pleasant song, the goldfinch was a popular pet, and could be taught simple tricks including lifting a thimble-sized bucket of water. The Dutch title of the painting is the bird’s nickname puttertje, which refers to this custom and is a diminutive equivalent to “draw-water”, an old Norfolk name for the bird. The goldfinch was reputedly a bringer of good health, and was used in Italian Renaissance painting as a symbol of Christian redemption and the Passion of Jesus. The painting shows a life-size European goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) on top of a feeder—a blue container with a lid, enclosed by two wooden half-rings fixed to the wall. The bird is perched on the upper ring, to which its leg is attached by a fine chain. The painting is signed and dated “C fabritivs 1654” at the bottom.
The Goldfinch is unusual for the Dutch Golden Age painting period in the simplicity of its composition and use of illusionary techniques. Following the death of its creator, it was lost for more than two centuries before its rediscovery in Brussels.

The goldfinch is a widespread and common seed-eating bird in Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia. As a colourful species with a pleasant twittering song, and an associated belief that it brought health and good fortune, it had been domesticated for at least 2,000 years. Pliny recorded that it could be taught to do tricks, and in the 17th century, it became fashionable to train goldfinches to draw water from a bowl with a miniature bucket on a chain.

  • Liedtke, Walter A; Plomp, Michiel C; Rüger, Axel (2001). Vermeer and the Delft School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 260–263. ISBN 978-0-300-08848-9.
  • Snow, David; Perrins, Christopher M, eds. (1998). The Birds of the Western Palearctic concise edition (2 volumes). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1561–1564. ISBN 978-0-19-854099-1.
  • Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto & Windus. pp. 448–451. ISBN 978-0-7011-6907-7.
  • Lederer, Roger J (2019). The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 15, 21. ISBN 978-0-226-67505-3.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights

The goldfinch frequently appears in paintings, not just for its colourful appearance but also for its symbolic meanings. Pliny associated the bird with fertility, and the presence of a giant goldfinch next to a naked couple in The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych by the earlier Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch perhaps refers to this belief.

  • Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto & Windus. pp. 448–451. ISBN 978-0-7011-6907-7.
Hm…that looks like two couples…actually it looks like one couple and one sickly threesome under the giant berry…in the water…and a dreamer/doppelganger on the other side of the giant bird…or maybe on the giant bird. Where is the bed? Is this the wrong giant bird? This will require its own page because awesome.

Nearly 500 Renaissance religious paintings, mainly by Italian artists, show the bird.  

In Medieval Christianity, the goldfinch’s association with health symbolises the Redemption, and its habit of feeding on the seeds of spiky thistles, together with its red face, presaged the crucifixion of Jesus, where the bird supposedly became splattered with blood while attempting to remove the crown of thorns.

  • Lederer, Roger J (2019). The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 15, 21. ISBN 978-0-226-67505-3
  • Cocker, Mark (2013). Birds and People. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 500–502. ISBN 978-0-224-08174-0.

Many of these devotional paintings were created in the middle of the fourteenth century while the Black Death pandemic gripped Europe.

  • Friedmann, Herbert (1946). Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. New York: Pantheon. pp. 6, 66. OCLC 294483.

The symbolism persisted long after the time of Fabritius. A much later example of the goldfinch as a symbol of redemption is Hogarth’s 1742 painting The Graham Children.

The Graham Children is an oil painting completed by William Hogarth in 1742. It is a group portrait depicting the four children of Daniel Graham, apothecary to King George II. The youngest child had died by the time the painting was completed. The Graham Children is a conversation piece, an informal group portrait of family or friends, often engaged in conversation or some other kind of activity, though the painting is larger than a typical work of that type. From left to right in the picture are Thomas, born 1740 and dressed in skirts as was typical for small boys until they were breeched, Henrietta, Anna Maria and Richard. Infant mortality in Britain was high in the eighteenth century, even for the children of the wealthy, and Thomas had died before the painting was completed. Hogarth used a study, probably completed after Thomas’s death, as the basis for his image. With its numerous references to death and the passage of time, it may be that the painting is a form of memorial for Thomas. The children are painted life size, surrounded by plush furnishings and fabrics that reflect the family’s wealth. A gilded bird cage is suspended from a cord and Thomas sits in an ornate baby cart with a fine silver fruit bowl at his feet. Richard plays a tune on a bird-organ, apparently making the bird sing. The French Rococo was at its height in the 1730s and its influence can be seen in the painting despite Hogarth not visiting France until 1743. William Gaunt thought that Hogarth was more familiar with current French painting than he liked to admit. The girl’s aprons form serpentine S’s, vertically in the oldest child, ending as it falls over her arm, and horizontally in the younger girl. A similar shape can be seen in the falling curtain on the right. The heads of the children and the cat create another noticeable S shape. The fruit bowl, a common subject in Rococo art, has been described as a “bravura piece of still-life painting” untypical of Hogarth’s work. David Bindman described The Graham Children as having a theme worthy of a history painting. Hogarth turned what could have been a simple family scene, even one with a tragic edge, into a parable about the “passing of time and the vulnerability of innocence”. The picture plays with time with different parts moving at different speeds. The boys are captured in mid movement, like the cat and bird, while the girls seem to be completely still, so that the picture is both a snap shot of a fleeting moment and a static portrait simultaneously. The oldest, Henrietta, holds the wrist of the youngest, perhaps indicating her future role as a mother, but not tightly and neither exchange looks, but neither do any of the children. Henrietta, instead, looks at the spectator, indicating her awareness of the adult world that she will soon join. The other children, however, remain in the innocent bubble of childhood. Thomas is fascinated by the glistening cherries held by his sister, which in Christian iconography represent the fruit of Paradise and the antidote to original sin, and for Henrietta symbolise the challenges she will soon face as she enters adulthood. Anna Maria practices the dance steps and curtseys that will be required of her in society, and Richard enjoys the musical performance of the finch. His bird-organ bears an image of Orpheus from Greek mythology, referring to the temporary harmony of man and nature that cannot last. On the clock stands a small winged figure with scythe and hour glass representing the passage of time, while the smiling cat eyes the caged bird, referring to the fragility of life. A wooden bird adorns the baby cart, like the caged bird unable to take flight. The crossed flowers at the baby’s feet refer to the Christian legend that pink carnations sprang from the earth at the spot where Mary’s tears fell after she saw Jesus carrying the cross, thus making the flower a symbol of motherly love. The bird depicted is a goldfinch, which for centuries had symbolised the Redemption, appropriate here because of Thomas’s death. Hogarth included wit and pathos in the same scene by audaciously placing the predatory cat in one corner and the recently deceased child in the other. The reaction of Thomas’s parents to this combination, which might have been seen as in poor taste, is unknown. The painting remained in Richard Graham’s possession until at least 1816. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Graham_Children

References

  1. Liedtke, Walter A; Plomp, Michiel C; Rüger, Axel (2001). Vermeer and the Delft School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 260–263. ISBN 978-0-300-08848-9.
  2. Snow, David; Perrins, Christopher M, eds. (1998). The Birds of the Western Palearctic concise edition (2 volumes). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1561–1564. ISBN 978-0-19-854099-1.
  3. Cocker, Mark; Mabey, Richard (2005). Birds Britannica. London: Chatto & Windus. pp. 448–451. ISBN 978-0-7011-6907-7.
  4. Lederer, Roger J (2019). The Art of the Bird: The History of Ornithological Art Through Forty Artists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 15, 21. ISBN 978-0-226-67505-3
  5. Friedmann, Herbert (1946). Symbolic Goldfinch: Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. New York: Pantheon. pp. 6, 66. OCLC 294483.
  6.  “The Goldfinch in Renaissance Art”. BirdLife International. 2008. Archived from the original on 6 April 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  7. Cocker, Mark (2013). Birds and People. London: Jonathan Cape. pp. 500–502. ISBN 978-0-224-08174-0.
  8.  “Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch, 1654”. Mauritshuis. Archived from the original on 5 April 2020. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  9.  “The Graham Children”. In-depth description. The National Gallery. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  10.  The Graham Children. The National Gallery. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  11. The Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion to the National Collections of British & Modern Foreign Art. London: Tate Gallery, 1979, p. 15. ISBN 0905005473
  12. Bindman, David. “Hogarth, William (1697–1764)” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, online edition, May 2009. Retrieved 7 December 2014. (subscription required)
  13. Glossary: Conversation Piece. The National Gallery. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  14. Postle, Martin. (2005) “The Age of Innocence: Child Portraiture in Georgian Art and Society”, in Pictures of Innocence: Portraits of Children from Hogarth to Lawrence. Bath: Holburne Museum of Art, p. 73. ISBN 0903679094
  15. Einberg, Elizabeth. (1997) Hogarth the Painter. London: Tate Gallery Publishing, p. 19 & 39. ISBN 1854372343
  16. Gaunt, William. (1964) A Concise History of English Painting. London: Thames and Hudson, p. 58.
  17. Bindman, David. (1981) Hogarth. London: Thames & Hudson, p. 144. ISBN 050020182X
  18. Einberg, Elizabeth. (1987) Manners & Morals: Hogarth and British Painting 1700–1760. London: Tate Gallery, p. 141. ISBN 0946590842
  19. Lindsey, Jack. (1977) Hogarth: His Art and his World. London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, p. 118. ISBN 0246108371
  20. Becker, Udo. (2000). The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols. New York: Continuum. pp. 52–53. ISBN 978-0-8264-1221-8.
  21. “The Graham Children”. In-depth description. The National Gallery. Retrieved 21 February 2022.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Goldfinch.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Graham Children.

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