A singerie: monkeys playing at cards in a tavern, with another seated on a table above taking a bunch of grapes from a basket

As pointed out by Margret Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp, 1991, p. 132, David Teniers II probably owed the theme of the singerie to Frans Francken II, who seems to be the first to have painted it (see Klinge, op.cit., p.132, fig.40b). The depiction of monkeys performing human activities was intended as a mockery of folly.

See colour illustration