1668
Oil on canvas, 73 x 62 cm
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne
Pieter de Hooch's painting belongs to the 'haute-bourgeois' genre. Through an anteroom we see a tidy living room with an elegantly clothed couple. The man is opening the cage with the parrot and the woman is enticing the bird out with a wine glass. These are clearly erotic symbols which indicate that the young woman is about to be seduced into an affair.
