El jilguero carel fabritius biography wikipedia

Expuesto en Sala The bird chained to its feeding-box, where it perches against a whitewashed wall, is a European goldfinch Carduelis carduelis. It can also open its feeding-box with its beak. Goldfinches were popular pets in the seventeenth century because of their ability to learn these tricks. They generally had feeding-boxes like the one depicted here, attached to a long wall-support, above which there was often another box, sometimes in the form of a little house with a step-gable.

Attached to the bottom of the support was a wooden platform with a circular hole through which the little bucket could be lowered. The goldfinch has been painted vigorously, in brushstrokes that can be clearly distinguished from one another. The paint has been applied in varying thicknesses, and in some places in thick impasto.

The goldfinch book pages

The little yellow feather in the black wing provides a striking colour accent. The scene is painted on a fairly thick small panel, which has been sawn from a far larger one. It may have been part of a cage as described above, for instance, but with a painted instead of a real bird. Another possibility is that it functioned as a little door to a wall niche.