genre, the armour is a reference to the vanitas motif of the transience of power and fame. In one of his guardroom interiors referred to as A guardroom with a self-portrait of the artist (At Sotheby's London sale of 7 July 2010, lot 12) Teniers included his own portrait at about 36 years of age. The artist has dossed himself out as an officer wearing an exotic fur-trimmed coat and a fur hat with plume. This self-portrait within this picture may have been intended as a tronie, which often depicted a stock character in an exotic costume. Teniers combined the genres of singerie and guardroom scene in the composition Guardroom with monkeys (Private collection). At a first glance, the Guardroom with Monkeys is no different from other guardroom scenes. It is clear from the round moon above the door that the scene is set late at night. The off-duty monkeys have removed their armor, stowed their pikes and rolled up their company flag and placed it against the far wall. Like their human counterparts, the monkey soldiers are loitering about, some of them are drinking and smoking, others are playing games. At the door a cat wearing respectable civilian clothes is led into the room by two monkeys who restrain it. The contrast between the properly dressed cat and the bizarre outfit of the monkey soldiers, one of which is wearing a funnel on his head while another has an upturned pot on his head, raises doubt as to the legitimacy of the monkeys' authority. As was customary in singeries, the dress and behaviour of the monkeys highlight the foolishness of human undertakings. Teniers may also have intended to criticize the bloated military in the Southern Netherlands in the 1630s. Physicians and alchemists The theme of physicians and alchemists was popular in 17th century Flemish and Dutch genre painting. Teniers was the principal contributor to this genre and its iconography in Flanders. The view of the public towards practitioners of either craft was ambivalent. Physicians and alchemists were regarded either as quacks or charlatans using deception to seek material gain or as persons seriously committed to the pursuit of knowledge. The ambivalence of this attitude was reflected in the artistic representations of physicians and alchemists. The first approach was to satirise the alchemist and turn him into a symbol of human folly. The artists would stress that the alchemist's research