The Goldfinch

painting by Fabritius

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June 29, 2026

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"The Goldfinch" is a renowned 1654 painting by Dutch artist Carel Fabritius. This relatively small artwork is a unique composition within 17th-century Dutch painting. It is housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. The painting is also famously the title and a central plot device for Donna Tartt's 2013 novel of the same name, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2014.

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Carel Fabritius
The Goldfinch (1654) is one of his best-known works and a unique composition in the tradition of 17th-century Dutch painting. An early portrait and a late portrait (1654) usually are regarded as self-portraits.
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The Goldfinch (1654) is one of his best-known works and a unique composition in the tradition of 17th-century Dutch painting. An early portrait and a late portrait (1654) usually are regarded as self-portraits.
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Mauritshuis
1665), Carel Fabritius’s The Goldfinch (1654), Jacob van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds (c. 1670–75), and Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). The basis of the collection came from William V, prince of Orange and Nassau and stadtholder of the Dutch…
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1665), Carel Fabritius’s The Goldfinch (1654), Jacob van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds (c. 1670–75), and Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp (1632). The basis of the collection came from William V, prince of Orange and Nassau and stadtholder of the Dutch…
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