https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436545?high=on&od=on&ft=17th+century&offset=40&rpp=40&pos=51
Victor Chan. "Time and Fortune in Three Early Portraits by Goya." Arts Magazine 55 (December 1980), pp. 107, 112, 114, 117, fig. 10, dates it about 1788; calls it a "forthright symbolic portrait about human destiny," interpreting the birdcage as the confinement and protection of childhood, the three cats as Fortune, Time, and the Fates, and the magpie holding Goya's calling card as Destiny, its fate, like Goya's artistic future, dependent on Fortune.
Claus Virch. Francisco Goya. New York, 1967, pp. 34–35, no. 3, ill., dates it 1787–88 and calls it one of the most famous portraits of children ever painted; notes that "all motion is suspended, but one can easily imagine all hell breaking loose in the next instant, when those monstrously intent cats, foreboding evil, jump at the magpie and tear apart the fragile birdcage, creating disorder and early sorrow... By introducing the dark forces of evil Goya gave poignancy to his portrayal of innocent youth".
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