Sir Peter Lely, Girl with a Parrot c.1670
Display caption
The identity of the little girl in this rich and stately environment is unknown. Lely shows her as a small adult in the type of loose satin frock often worn by his female sitters.
Her bare feet and the cherries she holds in her skirt, considered fruits of Paradise, symbolise innocence and virtue. She feeds some of them to a colourful African parrot, which wealthy families sometimes kept as exotic pets. Birds were sometimes seen as symbols of the soul; such a reading would continue the theme of childhood innocence.
February 2004
Other works of art you may be interested in
Find similar artworks
Artist
Sir Peter Lely
(8)
Category
Painting
(5,322)
Decade
1670-9
(11)
Style or ‘-ism’
16th and 17th century
(128)
Subject
architecture
(30,435)
emotions, concepts and ideas
(7,970)
emotions and human qualities
(1,746)
innocence
(21)
nature
(37,449)
animals: actions
(434)
feeding
(55)
animals: birds
(1,010)
parrot
(15)
plants and flowers
(1,741)
rose
(84)
objects
(12,243)
clothing and personal effects
(3,860)
food and drink
(539)
fruit, cherry
(7)
furnishings
(1,928)
curtain
(201)
people
(21,186)
actions: postures and motions
(6,764)
standing
(2,263)
portraits: unidentified
(277)
female
(119)
symbols & personifications
(4,830)
emotional states and conditions
(121)
lust - parrot
(1)
religious
(92)
soul - bird
(3)