''Two Monkeys'' or ''Two Chained Monkeys'' is a 1562 painting by Dutch and Flemish

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

artist

Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called genr ...

. The work is now in the Gemäldegalerie (''Painting Gallery'') of the

Berlin State Museums The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

Analysis

The painting depicts two monkeys shackled to an iron ring beneath an archway. Behind them, in the background, lies the city of

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

. The monkeys are

red-capped mangabey The collared mangabey (''Cercocebus torquatus''), also called red-capped mangabey and white-collared mangabey is a species of primate in the family Cercopithecidae of Old World monkeys. It formerly included the sooty mangabey as a subspecies. As ...

s and, due to Antwerp's status as a port city, were probably taken from their natural habitat by animal traders. Bruegel likely drew the symbol of two chained monkeys from

Quattrocento The cultural and artistic events of Italy during the period 1400 to 1499 are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento (, , ) from the Italian word for the number 400, in turn from , which is Italian for the year 1400. The Quattrocento encom ...

Italian artist Gentile da Fabriano's ''

Adoration of the Magi The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, ...

''. In that work, two monkeys are seen similarly chained under the central arc. Simultaneously paralleling and reinventing the meaning of the monkeys in Gentile's work, Bruegel used the chained monkeys to symbolize the follies of men and how they chain themselves and each other, according to art critic

Kelly Grovier Kelly Grovier is an American poet, historian, and art critic. Background Grovier was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received the school's Outstanding Senior of the Year Award upon graduation, and at Oxford Unive ...

. Margaret A. Sullivan of

Montana State University Montana State University (MSU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's largest university. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 6 ...

corroborates, stating that the two monkeys are seen as a "small allegory" of "foolish sinners, and their imprisonment is the result of an immoderate attitude towards material wealth." Specifically, Sullivan finds that the left monkey symbolizes avarice and greed while the right monkey represents prodigality. Sullivan drew these conclusions based on observations that ''Two Monkeys'' exhibits a "fundamental resemblance" to another of Bruegel's paintings, ''

Dull Gret ''Dulle Griet'' (anglicized as ''Dull Gret''), also known as ''Mad Meg'', is a figure of Flemish folklore who is the subject of a 1563 oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a virago, Dulle Grie ...

'' (''Mad Meg'').

Exhibition

To mark the 450th anniversary of Bruegel's death, ''Two Monkeys'', along with other works, was exhibited in ''Bruegel - The Hand of the Master'' in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

from October 2, 2018–January 13, 2019. For the exhibition, the Gemäldegalerie performed an in-depth technical analysis of the painting from January–August 2017. Examination methods included tree-ring dating; stereomicroscope investigation; and UV radiation, X-ray imaging, infrared reflectography, and X-ray fluorescence analyses. As a result, museum restorer and copyist Bertram Lorenz was able to reconstruct the painting.

Related works

Polish poet and

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winner

Wisława Szymborska Maria Wisława Anna SzymborskaVioletta Szostagazeta.pl, 9 February 2012. ostęp 2012-02-11 (; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent (n ...

wrote the poem "Two Monkeys by Bruegel" describing her reaction to the painting.

References

{{ACArt 1562 paintings Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Monkeys in art Paintings in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Maritime paintings