Monkey in a studio

Vollon, Antoine (1833-1900)


Item type:
painting
Date of creation:
1869
Height:
46.0 cm  (18 1/8 in.)
Width:
37.1 cm  (14 5/8 in.)
Technique / Medium:
oil on panel

    Item location

  • Philadelphia Museum of Art
    John G. Johnson Collection, 1917[Museum inv. no.: Cat. 1108]

Description

In this study of an artist's studio, Vollon creates an allegory of the liberal arts. The score and trumpet represent music, the books philosophy, the canvas on the easel painting, and the various works scattered throughout the studio sculpture. At the rear are casts from Michelangelo's Medici tombs in Florence, and of Minerva, the Roman goddess of the arts. In depicting a monkey as an artist, Vollon evokes a seventeenth-century Dutch tradition of satirizing the artist as imitator of nature, or "art as the ape of nature." (Philadelphia Museum of Art description)

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Trumpet [4446] (valveless trumpet)

Musical works

illegible music notation

RIdIM images


© Philadelphia Museum of Art

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

3407