Satirical paintings with monkeys, so-called monkey-tricks or singeries, were popular during the 17th century in Flanders. This popularity should be seen against the contemporary political, social and even military context. Thru absurd mockery criticism could safely be revealed.

 

Other contemporary Flemish painters of singeries are Abraham’s brother, David II Teniers, Sebastiaen Vrancx, Frans Francken II and Nicolaes van Verendael.

 

 

Flemish painter

Antwerp 1629 – 1670 Antwerp

 

Painter of genre scenes, also of tapestry designs.

 

Son of David Teniers I (1582 – 1649) and brother of David Teniers II (1610 – 1690). Abraham must have studied under his brother, who moved in 1650 from Antwerp to Brussels.. 

 

Member of the Antwerp Painter’s Guild of Saint Luke from the year 1645/46 onwards. He remained active in Antwerp all his life.

 

Abraham was court painter of the great lover of art Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614 – 1662), Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. Abraham’s brother, David II was, besides being another one of his court painters, also the keeper of the Archduke’s collection of pictures (now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna).

 

 

“Singeries” or monkey tricks were a popular subject in Flemish painting during the 17th century and later in French Rococo painting during the 18th century.

 

Comical scenes with monkeys behaving like humans had been introduced in Flemish art by the Renaissance engraver Pieter van der Borcht the Elder (circa 1530 – 1608) around 1575 in a series of prints.

 

Typical of the Flemish monkey scenes is their sense for satirical humour, often with a moralizing tendency, criticizing the monkeys’ and therefore man’s (stupid) behaviour and his sense for social hierarchy. 

Later in French painting these subjects received, typical of the Rococo period of course, a more decorative and less sharp meaning, often in combination with Chinese decors.

I should also mention in applied arts the famous porcelain monkey orchestras produced in Saxony, Germany, at the Meissen factory from around the middle of the 18th century onwards. 

 

The popularity of these singeries in Flanders should be seen against its historical context: Flanders was since the Middle Ages one of the richest regions of Europe, but it had always been in the hands of foreign powers. Mild forms of satire and a sense for “surrealism” were a second nature for our writers and artists. 

 

It might seem rather surprising to us that, long before Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859), painters turned to monkeys imitating man’s basic behaviour. Since Antiquity monkeys were considered stupid animals who, with their eyes wide open, are merely copying human foolish behaviour, without fully understanding it: monkeys and cats were vain animals driven by their instincts.

 

 

Because it is a nice, detailed example of a 17th century Flemish singerie.