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Jacob Maris, 'A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage', about 1867

About the work

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.

Key facts

Full title
A Girl feeding a Bird in a Cage
Artist
Jacob Maris
Artist dates
1837 - 1899
Date made
about 1867
Medium and support
oil on wood
Dimensions
32.6 × 20.8 cm
Inscription summary
Signed
Acquisition credit
Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
Inventory number
NG3261
Location
On loan: Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2019 - 2031), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland
Collection
Main Collection

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

More works by Jacob Maris

A Beach
A Beach
Jacob Maris
This beach may be at Scheveningen, close to The Hague, where Jacob Maris settled in the 1870s. A lone fisherman appears to be hauling nets alongside two beached flat-bottomed fishing boats. A few birds are the only sign of wildlife.Maris painted the scene, particularly the sky, with broad visible...
Not on display
A Drawbridge in a Dutch Town
A Drawbridge in a Dutch Town
Jacob Maris
The everyday quality of this simple functional bridge may have particularly appealed to Jacob Maris, and he paints it without embellishment or narrative incident. He also made a watercolour of the same view in 1875, but in this oil painting he emphasises the bridge’s monumentality by increasing t...
Not on display
A Girl seated outside a House
A Girl seated outside a House
Jacob Maris
When this small painting on wood was bequeathed to the National Gallery it had the title Vespers, although it had previously been titled Young Girl with Flowers. The composition is very similar to a picture titled Sunday Afternoon, which Jacob Maris had painted a few years earlier in 1863. That p...
Not on display
A Windmill and Houses beside Water: Stormy Sky
A Windmill and Houses beside Water: Stormy Sky
Jacob Maris
This painting is typical of the views of the Dutch countryside that Jacob Maris produced throughout his career. A single windmill provides the only interruption along the flat horizon in a picture that is dominated by a stormy sky – the painting previously had the title La Tourmente (‘Turmoil’ or...
Not on display
A Young Woman nursing a Baby
A Young Woman nursing a Baby
Jacob Maris
Jacob Maris was a highly successful painter of Dutch landscapes, but he also painted interiors with people and genre subjects. This small intimate picture was painted in Paris, where he lived from 1865 until 1871.The woman is almost certainly Maris’s wife. Their first child, Guillaume, was born i...
Not on display
Three Windmills
Three Windmills
Jacob Maris
Born in The Hague, Jacob Maris trained at the city’s Drawing Academy and at the Academy in Antwerp. His interest in specifically Dutch landscape perhaps began on his first visit in 1859 to the artists’ colony at the village of Oosterbeek. After travelling in northern Europe, Jacob moved to Paris...
Not on display