Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (1784–1792)  1788

by Francisco de Goya

The sitter is the son of the Count and Countess of Altamira. Outfitted in a splendid red costume, he is shown playing with a pet magpie (which holds the painter's calling card in its beak), a cage full of finches, and three wide-eyed cats. In Christian art birds frequently symbolize the soul, and in Baroque art caged birds are symbolic of innocence. Goya may have intended ...
Size: 
127 x 101,6 cm
Medium: 
Oil on canvas
Credit: 
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art