This young girl is an image of poverty. The birdcage commonly represented servitude - here depicting that the young girl is a "servant or a hard-worked daughter of the house" (The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology). The girl in the painting is clearly worn out, oblivious to everything else in the room as she gazes entranced by the fire. As we often see throughout Dickens' Bleak House, the children are not subject to work in the factories and work houses, but rather, they are subject to servitude in the homes. This picture reminds me of Charley, before she becomes Esther's maid. The conditions are very unpleasant. She is exhausted, simply trying to make her way in the face of poverty in London.
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Featured in Exhibit
Date
1845
Artist
Copyright
©
Vetted?
No