Carel Fabritius’s Rare Bird

Freud never said that sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, but whoever did so was right. Can an image with considerable iconic suggestiveness be only itself? Can a goldfinch be only a bird? The famous finch in Carel Fabritius’s tiny oil painting perches on his little feeding box, overseeing a room in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. The picture shares pride of place with Vermeer’s “The Girl With the Pearl Earring” as one of the most beloved works in this jewel box of a museum.