Un gavilán

This is a small thing, barely the size of a hand, and it shows a single sparrowhawk on a perch. Look for the tiny bell just above one foot and the slender cord tying her down. Both belong to a falconer's kit. A bell told the handler where the bird had flown, and the cord kept her close between hunts. Jacopo de' Barbari painted her late in his life, around 1510, when this Venetian had left Italy to serve the courts of Germany and the Netherlands, where hunting with hawks was a mark of noble rank. He set her against a plain wall in bright, raking light so that she throws a hard shadow, as if she were a real bird perched in your room. It may be a surviving piece of a larger picture now lost.