Nicolaes van VEERENDAEL Antwerp, 1640 - 1691 The workshop of the monkey painter Oil on panel Signed and dated 'N. V. Veerendael 169(...)' in the lower centre (Wear) Without frame The workshop of the painter monkey, oil on panel, signed and dated, by N. van Veerendael 22,50 x 29,50 cm (8,86 x 11,61 in.) Provenance: Acquired by Arthur Martin in Brussels in 1926; Then by descent; Private collection, Belgium Bibliography: Pierre Bautier, "Les tableaux des singeries attribués à Teniers", in 'Extrait des Annales de la Société Royale d'Archéologie de Bruxelles', tome 32, Wetteren, 1926, p. 8 Comment: In 17th-century Flemish genre painting, monkeys were sometimes substituted for figures to symbolise the stupidity and unbridled morals of humans. Interiors featuring monkeys as drinkers, smokers or card-players, painters, sculptors or, in this case, barbers, proliferated in the work of artists such as Jan Brueghel the Younger, Ferdinand van Kessel, David and Abraham Teniers, and, more unusually here, the flower painter Nicolas van Veerendael. We know of two other paintings by Nicolaes van Veerendael, one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brussels (Joyeuse compagnie, inv. no. 4615) and the other in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden (Banquet de singes dated 1686, Gal.- Nr. 1229).