singerie

Refers to a type of European, and especially French, ornament in which monkeys dressed in human clothing mimic such activities as drinking, dancing, hunting, and playing musical instruments. The monkeys are often placed in a setting of scrolling foliage or strapwork. Although ornamental monkeys had been depicted since the Middle Ages as a means to parody and mock the baser human activities, the taste for more elegant singerie first developed in the late 17th century in the work of Jean Bérain I and Claude Audran III. Singerie decoration reached its height of popularity in the 18th century (i.e. the work of Christophe Huet) when it became associated with chinoiserie, fading from fashion with the rise of Neoclassicism. It enjoyed another wave of popularity in the 19th-century revival of 18th-century taste. Singerie developed in part as a way of lampooning the excessive fadism for neo-Chinese forms of the aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie which some artists considered pretentious. Singerie is found on porcelain, faience, and marquetry as well as embroidered and printed on textiles and painted on walls.