My Monkey Painting is intended as a homage to 17th-century portraiture, and to the humanistic aesthetic that underlies it. It is also an exercise in the genre of singerie or 'monkey painting'. This genre also goes back to the 17th century: monkeys were often portrayed in human clothes, performing human actions, and were generally symbolic of human foolishness and vanity. The best known examples are by Teniers, Watteau and Chardin..." http://www.conorwalton.com/gallery07/monkey_painting_essay.htm