up on what is likely a town square with a landscape in the distance. Food and wine are in abundant supply. On the tent is pinned an image of an owl with spectacles. The owl recalls the Flemish proverb 'wat baten kaars en bril als de uil niet zien en lezen wil' ('what good are candle and spectacles if the owl does not want to see and read'). The Festival of monkeys can be regarded as a criticism of the role of 'fools in high places'. Teniers evidently identified close with the singerie genre in this early period of his career as two monkey scenes – the Guardroom with monkeys and the Festival of monkeys – are reproduced in his self-portrait of 1635, known as The Artist in his studio (private collection, a workshop copy was sold at Sotheby's New York sale of 27 May 2004 as lot 16). The artist is shown sitting in front of an easel holding his brush and palette. In an exceptions combination of the genre of artist studio and gallery painting, some young connoisseurs are visiting the artist's studio and are examining some of his works. Guardroom scenes Teniers painted several guardroom scenes or corps de garde such as The Sentinel (1642). A guardroom scene is a type of genre scene that became popular in the mid-17th century, particularly in the Dutch Republic. In Flanders Teniers was one of the principal practitioners of the genre together with his brother Abraham, Anton Goubau, Cornelis Mahu and Jan Baptist Tijssens the Younger. A guardroom scene typically depicts an interior scene with officers and soldiers engaged in merrymaking. Guardroom scenes often included mercenaries and prostitutes dividing booty, harassing captives or indulging in other forms of reprehensible activities. Many of Tenier's guardroom interiors date to the mid-1640s and are painted on copper. The subject of the guardroom and its contents such as armor, colorful flags and banners, saddles, drums, pistols allowed Teniers to showcase his brilliance as a still life painter. Teniers also used the subject to demonstrate his ability to use light to achieve a perfect representation of the quality of painted objects. The armour depicted in the guardroom pictures was already out of date at the time it was painted since metal armours, breast plates and helmets fell out of use from the 1620s. It is possible that in line with the moralizing intent of the