Naakt kind met een vogel

Wallerant Vaillant created this small monochrome mezzotint, "Naked Child with a Bird," sometime in the mid-17th century. The image presents us with an unexpectedly corpulent infant, nude but for a strategically placed sash, gleefully releasing a bird to flight. The image creates meaning through several visual and cultural codes that we can link to the social history of the period in which it was made. In the Dutch Republic, the era of Vaillant, birds and cages were popular symbols of the soul, or of virginity, and their release a metaphor for freedom. Here, Vaillant seems to comment on the social structures of his time, self-consciously progressive through his critique of Dutch values. As historians, our interpretation of art relies on understanding social and institutional contexts. Resources such as letters or diaries can help shed light on the meaning of art, yet it is contingent on the social moment.