The Goldfinch

Carel Fabritius's 'The Goldfinch' (1654) is a tiny oil panel — just 33.5 by 22.8 cm — depicting a European goldfinch perched on its feeder, chained by a fine leg-ring against a light-washed plaster wall. The bravura paint-handling turns a simple pet into a meditation on captivity and light, the shadow on the wall rendered in a single decisive flick of the brush. A pupil of Rembrandt and possibly a teacher of Vermeer, Fabritius was killed later that same year when the Delft Thunderclap, the city's powder-magazine explosion, destroyed his studio and much of his oeuvre — lending this survival an almost talismanic status.

Exhibition Venue

Mauritshuis

The Hague, Netherlands