The Whore's Revenge

Tiepolo's Parrot

Nigel Bruce

• 1 min read
Tiepolo's Parrot
Self-portrait detail from a ceiling fresco in Würzburg Residence.

A year or two before Casanova bought La Charpillon her raucous parrot, his contemporary from Venice, Giambattista Tiepolo, painted Young Woman with a Parrot (or a Macaw - I've seen both titles) and it is now in - where else - England of course - in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. It's one of those little quirks of art/literary history...

Parrots - like bared nipples - a popular symbol of flirtation and eroticism. But Casanova also chose the parrot because of its gift of mimicry and mockery. It wasn't always erotic, of course, but it could be playful as in Mathilde de Canisy, Marquise d’Antin. She is only 14 here.

Jean-Marc Nattier: "Portrait of Mathilde de Canisy, the Marquise of Antin" (1738), Jacquemart-André Collection, Paris

Delacroix also contributed to the genre, although the parrot is hard to see.

Delacroix: "La Femme au perroquet" (1827), Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

Did you find it? Below is Gustave Courbet's controversial contribution:

"La Femme au perroquet" (1866), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York