Yet this small but impressive body of work, which began in 1645 with his first Self-Portrait, and ended in 1654, accounted for only eleven years of Fabritius’ career as an artist. Where were his early paintings and drawings, art historians wondered? The first to be found was The Raising of Lazarus, which was hanging in a church in Warsaw, attributed to a German artist named Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich. When the painting was restored in 1935, the signature “Car. Fabr” appeared on the canvas, and Fabritius scholars were surprised and thrilled to see this rendition of a classic religious scene, modeled in the spirit of Rembrandt. Fabritius proved that he had been an apt pupil while in his master’s workshop, but he also showed that, at the relatively young age of twenty-one, he had ideas and techniques all his own.
In 1985. Mercury, Argus, and Io was found at auction in Monaco. A previous owner attempted to replace Fabritius’ signature with that of Rembrandt, but upon close inspection it was possible to see the original autograph. This discovery set the stage for other great finds. Frederik Duparc, who had been a curator at the Mauritshuis (and would go on to become its director in 1991), was working in Montreal when he was struck by an idea late one night. A native of Holland and lifelong devoté of Fabritius, he was thinking about Mercury and Aglauros, a painting at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston that had been attributed to the artist Govert Flinck, when it occurred to him that it was clearly the work of Fabritius. The positioning of the figures, the brownish coloring, the spotlight on the central characters, were sufficiently reminiscent of other paintings by Fabritius to warrant authentication. Subsequently, two additional early history paintings by Fabritius, Hagar and the Angel and Hera, were found. These works, which he completed between 1643 and 1647, enlarged the enigmatic artist’s catalogue.
Art historians continue to debate Fabritius’ body of work. Some experts count a mere twelve acknowledged paintings, while others include additional pieces, among them, The Beheading of John the Baptist, Man in a Helmet, and several tronies. But it is The Goldfinch that remains the most perplexing mystery, the biggest question being why Fabritius painted it. What purpose was it meant to serve? The weakest theory was that it was a sign he created for the De Potter family, and that “putter” was a play on the name “Potter.” However, it is unlikely that an artist would expend so much obvious effort, let alone put his own name on a sign intended for someone else. Because Fabritius painted on a wood panel, some scholars suggest The Goldfinch served as a decorative door for a case that housed a picture inside. Then, there are those who believe Fabritius cleverly extended the trompe l’oeil illusion of the painting by displaying it as a real birdcage setup, with a miniature bucket and glass, so the puttertje would appear to be drawing its own water.
The Mauritshuis explored some of these suppositions in 2003, when The Goldfinch was placed in the hands of conservators for treatment and study. The painting was so popular that museum officials decided to set up the conservation studio in a gallery, where visitors could observe the process. Thoré had described the bird’s perch as “hanging from a deathly pale wall,” but the painting’s old varnish rendered the surface a dull yellow. Experts using cotton swabs dipped in an organic solvent painstakingly removed the aged layer, gradually revealing that “deathly pale wall,” brilliant splashes of yellow on the bird’s wing, and Fabritius’ textured brushstrokes. After some retouching and a complete revarnishing, the painting looked very much the way it looked in 1654, fresh, vibrant, and utterly modern.
As part of its technical examination, The Goldfinch took a trip to the Meander Medical Center in Amersfoort, where it was the first painting to go through a Siemens CT-scanner. According to Jorgen Wadum, Chief Conservator at the Mauritshuis, traditional X-rays could not provide an in-depth look at the wooden panel because Fabritius’ lead-white paint blocked everything beneath it. The scanner provided a clearer view, and showed evidence of a dowel hole, proof that Fabritius cut the panel from two larger planks of wood that had been joined with a dowel.
While it was interesting to see the details that made the artist’s fabrication process come to life — the markings Fabritius etched when he measured his cut, along with traces of the imitation gold frame he nailed to the panel, then ultimately removed — the most fascinating discovery during the examination involved the surface. Conservators observed small dents scattered all over the painting, as if it had been hit by something. The marks occurred when the paint was wet, they determined, because hardened paint would have cracked. At this point, an exciting hypothesis took shape. Fabritius painted The Goldfinch in 1654, so the paint could have been wet at the time of the explosion. As the book Preserving Our Heritage: Conservation, Restoration and Technical Research in the Mauritshuis postures, “It is plausible to think that the painting buried in the rubble of the studio may have been slightly damaged in this way.”20 Science now supported the once-sentimental notion that Fabritius’ bird survived the Thunderclap and was saved from the ashes.
Since its miraculous rescue, The Goldfinch has captivated artists and art lovers alike, often serving as muse for new creations. Inspired by a postcard reproduction, the contemporary artist Helen Frankenthaler painted Fabritius Bird, an abstract rendering of the same subject, a goldfinch in captivity. The poet Morrie Creech paid tribute to the modernity of the painting in his work entitled “Goldfinch.” “O plump brown household god,” he wrote, “what most amazes is how, held in that perfect light from Delft, chained to a narrow rail, perched on a shelf in 1654, you look at us.”21 And most recently, in 2013, Donna Tartt published “The Goldfinch,” her epic, novel about art and life, love and loss.
Tartt’s stellar literary career was launched in 1992 with her bestselling debut novel, The Secret History, followed a decade later by The Little Friend. Tartt likes to take her time, to contemplate every character, word, even comma — to luxuriate in the multifaceted worlds she creates. “I’m like an astronaut or something,” she told an interviewer. “I’m really, really out there for a very long time.”22 She spent another ten years writing her third novel, which actually came this close to having absolutely nothing to do with Carel Fabritius or his goldfinch.
Deeply disturbed by the Taliban’s bombing of sixth-century Buddhist carvings in Afghanistan, Tartt was moved to write about the senseless destruction of art. She decided that her story — whatever direction it took — would involve a child who became obsessed with a painting, one that was both small and portable. Initially, she found a work by the artist Hans Holbein that seemed to fit her requirements. Subsequently, during a trip to Amsterdam, Tartt saw a copy of Fabritius’ The Goldfinch, and knew immediately that the little bird would appeal to a child. “This was the painting for my book,” she said.23
She began writing the story of Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old-boy who loses his mother in a terrorist explosion and becomes the secret caretaker of Fabritius’ painting. Amazingly, it wasn’t until two years after she established these important plot points that Tartt discovered that Fabritius had died in a spectacular gunpowder explosion in Delft, while painting a portrait of a man named Simon Decker — two coincidences of epic proportions. “It was as if God had dropped this into my lap. I didn’t know this painting had a history of disaster behind it. …When coincidences like that start happening you know the muses are on your side,” she recounted in an interview in the Telegraph.
Tartt’s Decker spends his adolescence and early adulthood recovering from a terrible tragedy and grappling with life’s biggest and most confounding questions: Why are we here and, how do we, like the chained goldfinch, endure our suffering? In her masterful homage to the classic nineteenth-century bildungsroman, Tartt searches for answers, emulating Charles Dickens, her literary idol, with her bravura storytelling. And, like Dickens, she — or, rather, Theo, her narrator — paints The Goldfinch as a tragic figure. “What a cruel life for a little living creature — fluttering briefly, forced always to land in the same hopeless place,” he says, projecting his own pain on the bir
d.
However, as Theo survives a series of cathartic experiences and becomes stronger, his vision of the world changes. “Hope is,” after all, “the thing with feathers,” according to Dickens’ contemporary, the great American poet Emily Dickinson. Theo realizes that Fabritius’ goldfinch, the repository of so much history, symbolism, and even psychology, was “Not timid, not even hopeless, but steady and holding its place. Refusing to pull back from the world.” By the end of the book, he decides that both he and the goldfinch, while still subject to the often senseless vagaries of fate, are no longer victims. “That life — whatever else it is — is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it.” When he looks closely, even the bird’s chain has a “glint of brightness on it.” Life offers “sorrow inseparable from joy.”
In “The Goldfinch,” Tartt introduced nearly two million readers to a work of art they may never have known. Herein lies another remarkable twist of fate: On the day of the book’s release, October 22, 2013, an exhibition entitled “Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis” opened at the Frick Collection in New York City, and Fabritius’ Goldfinch was one of the paintings on display.
It stole the show.
Sparked by rave reviews, readers devoured the book in big gulps (no small accomplishment given that it is a hefty 771 pages long, and prompted a rapturous Stephen King to warn, “Don’t drop it on your foot!”). Naturally, Tartt’s fans raced to the Frick to come face to face with the enigmatic bird who was the novel’s guiding spirit. From October through January, some 230,000 museum-goers stood patiently in lines that went on for blocks, undeterred by miserable weather or subzero temperatures. 13,000 resourceful visitors avoided the interminable wait by joining the Frick, quadrupling the museum’s membership in a single season.
Once inside the galleries, book lovers on a mission made a sharp right turn when they reached Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, and headed straight for The Goldfinch. One could imagine a New Yorker cartoon showing the exasperated Girl, the star attraction upstaged by her understudy, demanding indignantly, “Would somebody please shoot that bird?’ Tartt’s fans were now Fabritius’ fans, and they stood before his diminutive picture, refusing to budge for the next wave of enthusiasts. A true sign of celebrity was when The Goldfinch souvenir mug sold out at the gift shop. “Frick’s Finch Lays Golden Egg,” proclaimed one headline.24 “New Yorkers are Obsessed with This Teeny Tiny Bird,” said another.25 By the time The Goldfinch headed back to The Hague, stopping in at the Palazzo Fava in Bologna for a tour of duty, the painting was an international sensation.
Otto Naumann, one of the leading dealers in European Old Master paintings, places the value of The Goldfinch at a record $300 million. “I would guess, when considered by the square inch, The Goldfinch might be one of the most valuable paintings in the world,” he says, news that would have been very surprising, and very validating, to the perpetually penniless Fabritius.
Like his little bird, Fabritius was chained to a tragic destiny, his life and most of his work, destroyed by flames. But, like his bird, he endured, and his name — and significance — were resurrected. At one point, a pivotal character in Tartt’s novel says, “Anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.” Given its long and storied flight, The Goldfinch, “when considered by the square inch,” may be the most miraculous painting in the world.
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah Davis is the author of six narrative non-fiction books, including Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X (Tarcher/Putnam, 2003), Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball (Wiley, 2006), The Secret Lives of Frames: 100 Years of Art and Artistry (Filipacchi Publishing, 2007), Gilded: How Newport Became the Richest Resort in America (Wiley, 2009), The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy, the authorized history of twenty-five years of the landmark television show and its legendary host (Abrams, 2011), Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner that Shocked a Nation (Atria, 2012), which won the prestigious Phillis Wheatley Award for best work of History in 2013, and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Davis’ upcoming book, The Trip (Atria, 2015), tells the story of Andy Warhol’s adventures on a cross-country road-trip in 1963.
Endnotes
1 Duparc, Frederik J., and Gero Seelig. Carel Fabritius: 1622-1654 (Zwolle: Waanders, 2004), 15.
2 Roberts, Benjamin B. Through the Keyhole: Dutch Child-Rearing Practices in the 17th and 18th Century: Three Urban Elite Families (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998), 138.
3 Roberts, Benjamin B. Sex and Drugs before Rock ’n’ Roll: Youth Culture and Masculinity during Holland's Golden Age (Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2012), 27.
4 Barnes, Donna R., and Peter G. Rose. Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art and Life (Syracuse University Press, 2002), 98.
5 Zumthor, Paul. Daily Life in Rembrandt’s Holland (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 179.
6 Duparc, Carel Fabritius, 17.
7 Schama, Simon. Rembrandt’s Eyes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 489.
8 Van Bleyswijck, Dirck. Beschryvinge Der Stadt Delft (Delft: Arnold Bon, 1667).
9 Brown, Christopher, Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné ( Oxford: Phaidon, 1981), 150.
10 Friedmann. The Symbolic Goldfinch (Pantheon, Washington, D.C., 1946), 66.
11 Albin, Eleazar, A Natural History of English Songbirds (C. Ware, London 1759), 1.
12 Church of England site
13 Van Bleyswijck.
14 Hale, Philip Leslie. Jan Vermeer of Delft (Small, Maynard, Boston:, 1913), 64.
15 Binstock, Benjamin. Vermeer's Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice (Routledge, New York, 2009), 110.
16 Duparc, 139.
17 Duparc, 139.
18 Duparc, 44.
19 Jowel, Francis Suzman. “A Rather Unusual Gallery of Bric-a-Brac”, Jstor library, 5/20/2014.
20 Noble, Petria, and Epco Runia. Preserving Our Heritage: Conservation, Restoration and Technical Research in the Mauritshuis. Zwolle: Waanders, 2009), 154.
21 Creech, Mori, First Things (Institute of Religion and Public Life, New York, 2010), “Goldfinch.”
22 Brown, Mick, 2013. “If I’m not working, I’m not happy,” The Telegraph, London, December 9.
23 Mahler, Thomas, 2013. “Donna Tartt, la dernière star des lettres?” Le Point, Paris, December 1.
24 Halperin, Julie, 2014. “Frick Finch Lays Golden Egg,” The Art Newspaper, January 11.
25 Regatao, Gisele, 2014. “New Yorkers are Obsessed with this Teeny, Tiny Bird,” WNYC, November 22.
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