Tiepolo's Parrot

A year or two before Casanova bought La Charpillon her raucous parrot, his contemporary from Venice, Giambattista Tiepolo, painted Young Woman with a Parrot (or a Macaw - I've seen both titles) and it is now in - where else - England of course - in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. It's one of those little quirks of art/literary history...

Parrots - like bared nipples - a popular symbol of flirtation and eroticism. But Casanova also chose the parrot because of its gift of mimicry and mockery.

Delacroix also contributed to the genre, although the parrot is hard to see.