monkey). Comical scenes with monkeys appearing in human attire and a human environment are a pictorial genre that was initiated in Flemish painting in the 16th century and was subsequently further developed in the 17th century. Monkeys were regarded as shameless and impish creatures and excellent imitators of human behaviour. These depictions of monkeys enacting various human roles were a playful metaphor for all the folly in the world. In 16th century visual and literary sources, the image of the monkey was typically used to symbolise the unreasonable and foolish aspect of human nature. It is this quality that Teniers refers to in his Allegory of Vanitas (1633, private collection) in which he included a chained monkey in fool's clothes who is looking through a telescope from the wrong end. In addition, monkeys were associated with the Antichrist and the Devil and regarded as the opposite of god. In Dürer's print Madonna with a monkey the Virgin, who represents holiness, is contrasted with the monkey chained at her feet who symbolizes evil. The Flemish engraver Pieter van der Borcht introduced the singerie as an independent theme around 1575 in a series of prints, which were strongly embedded in the artistic tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. These prints were widely disseminated and the theme was then picked up by other Flemish artists. The first one to do so was the Antwerp artist Frans Francken the Younger, who was quickly followed by Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Younger and Sebastiaen Vrancx. David Teniers the Younger, following in the footsteps of his father-in-law Jan Brueghel the Elder, became the principal practitioner of the genre and developed it further with his younger brother Abraham Teniers. The two brothers were able to cater to the prevailing taste in the art market and were thus instrumental in spreading the genre outside Flanders. Later in the 17th century Nicolaes van Verendael started to paint these 'monkey scenes' as well. Teniers painted singeries in two distinctive periods. During the first period in the early 1630s he was still working in Antwerp. He returned to the subject in the 1660s when he was working in Brussels as the court painter of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. In the early period Teniers's singeries typically depicted monkeys as soldiers. From this period dates his Festival of monkeys (1633, private collection). Monkey soldiers are shown enjoying themselves in front of a tent set