John Byam Liston Shaw - The Caged Bird

[Frederick Hollyer, photograph of artist, Byam Liston Shaw, 1894]

John Byam Liston Shaw (November 13, 1872 – January 26, 1919), commonly known as Byam Shaw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byam_Shaw



[The Caged Bird]

1907

Oil on panel

37 x 28 inches, 94 x 71 centimetres

The model for the painting was Maud Tindal Atkinson, an artist pupil who exhibited at the Royal Academy 1907, from whom he painted a life size watercolour which hung at the Royal Academy in 1906.

The symbolism of the release of a caged bird in Seventeenth-Century Dutch painting signified the loss of virginity of the owner. As Maud was his favourite pupil, it would seem apparent that this hidden meaning was not lost on the artist.

Revitalization of Pre-Raphaelitism in The Caged Bird
http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/shaw/paintings/marecki11.html