Old Portraits with Parrots

I was perusing the internet and I saw some really neat old portraits of people with parrots. I know some old English Kings had them (one of the Henrys at least), but it's cool to see them in history.


Portrait of a Lady with a Parrot - Antonis Mor (1564) [DYHA?]


Portrait of a Lady, seated half-length, in a dressing gown and wig, feeding a parrot -Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) [congo grey?]








Attributed to Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (Weimar 1712-1774 Dresden)
A lady holding a parrot [CAG?]



Portrait of a 5-year-old boy with a parrot by Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, 1625-50 [lovebird?]


Portrait of a Lady with a Parrot -Casper Netscher (?) [King's Parrot?]


Parrot Portrait of Young Woman -Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) [Greenwing?]


Portrait of a Girl with a Parrot -? (1640) [DYHA?]


Portrait of a Gentleman with a Parrot -Niccolo dell'Abbate (1552-1555) [Scarlet?]


Girl with Parrot -Santi di Tito (?) [Blue and Gold?]

That amazon gets ahold of her nibbies and there'll be some screamin!

Very cool post! Thanks!

Very neat old paintings! Imagine just how spectacular people mustve thought amazons and macaws were when they first started being brought back from the new world? Though I can't help but think in the Teipolo portrait, that lady may have had a very different expression if that macaw got a hold of her, erm, exposed parts. Never a safe call with a parrot nearby lol.

LOL Kiwibird! i was so busy looking at the parrots in each painting that i didn't even see the "exposure". I scrolled back up and thought 'what an odd pose for this painting!'

Haha, I didn't even see that till after I posted it. Not exactly safe, sorry if it offends anyone. If anyone finds more of these old portraits, please share!

Dolly Madison had a parrot that she would let sit of her shoulder while she walked around the white house. I do not know if there is a potrait of her with the bird or not.

I wonder what sort of cages parrots were kept in back then? I imagine them being kept in small cages with no toys...but perhaps I'm wrong - looks like the last one there had a nice out-of-cage playstand at least. (Does anyone else have the urge to hang some toys on there though...?)

I love these old pictures. I wonder, though, parrot species weren't that different back then, so how did they paint them so "creatively" that you almost can't ID them? Makes you wonder how much other creative license they exercised, as well, huh?

I, too, would be interested in what kinds of cages they kept them in. I do know they were quite a bit smaller, as were ancient aquariums (although they were ornate and beautiful). We've come so far in the proper care of captive pets, and for that I'm really glad.

Someone put together a pinterest page with old cages; I'm sure some of them are authentic.

I Love Old Bird Cages

Some of those are really beautiful (love that brass one). But the others make me wonder if toxic metal poisoning was the early demise of many birds kept in those old cages. . . .

Thank you for posting the link to the pictures.

As pretty as those cages are I too have to wonder if bird's suffered an very early death. We know song birds were put in cages that would be considered small in our view. I read some people pointing to the theory that parrots then were chained to a bird perch instead of being put in cages. Falcons back then were chained to perch and even had hoods to cover their eyes from what I gather that is still practiced). One thing I have to wonder if pet parrots back then or even earlier times had a human or humans around them all the time?