Ferdinand van Kessel the Elder

Probably with Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1951;

Art market, Florence, 1959;

Probably where acquired by Marco Grassi, Florence and New York;

By whom anonymously sold, New York, Sotheby's, 21 May 1998, lot 60;

Where acquired by Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III.

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Natures mortes françaises du XVII^e siècle à nos jours, 21 December 1951 - 1 March 1952 (according to a label on the verso);

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, I^a Mostra mercato internazionale dell'antiquariato, 12 September - 11 October 1959 (according to a label on the verso).

In this satirical scene, Jan van Kessel the Younger depicts an anthropomorphized group of monkeys engaged in a spirited game of backgammon. The composition draws on the Flemish tradition of singerie—a genre in which monkeys mimic human behavior to comic or moralizing effect. Here, van Kessel critiques human folly and vice, presenting the primates as stand-ins for vanity, greed, and indulgence, while the overturned cards and scattered tokens on the floor suggest the chaos and corruption of gaming culture.