''The Gilded Cage'' is a 1908

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

by Irish artist

Saint George Hare Saint George Hare (5 July 1857 Limerick – London, 1933) was an Irish artist. Life He was the son of George Frederick Hare, a dentist from Ipswich, and his wife, Ella, from County Wexford. He was formally educated in art in Limerick Schoo ...

, one of several of his shackled female images including his more famous ''The'' ''Victory of Faith''. It depicts a lone, sleeping woman shackled by the wrists to a column while butterflies fly past. Its title may have been inspired by the 1900 song "

A Bird in a Gilded Cage "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" is a song composed by Arthur J. Lamb and Harry Von Tilzer. It was a sentimental ballad (or tear-jerker) that became one of the most popular songs of 1900, reportedly selling more than two million copies in sheet music.R ...

" and the painting may have symbolic meaning.Art UK
/ref> According to the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), "The depiction of naked women in chains seemed to hold a special interest for Hare, and he returned to the subject frequently". Despite the captive's partial nudity she retains her innocence as her state of being disrobed is forced upon her by her captors rather than being her own choice.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilded Cage, The 1908 paintings Irish paintings