Why Are There So Many 17th Century Paintings of Monkeys Getting Drunk?

Many kinds of monkeys have a strong taste for tea, coffee, and spiritous liquors: they will also, as I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure. (6. The same tastes are common to some animals much lower in the scale. Mr. A. Nichols informs me that he kept in Queensland, in Australia, three individuals of the Phaseolarctus cinereus [koalas]; and that, without having been taught in any way, they acquired a strong taste for rum, and for smoking tobacco.) Brehm asserts that the natives of north-eastern Africa catch the wild baboons by exposing vessels with strong beer, by which they are made drunk. He has seen some of these animals, which he kept in confinement, in this state; and he gives a laughable account of their behaviour and strange grimaces. On the following morning they were very cross and dismal; they held their aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable expression: when beer or wine was offered them, they turned away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons. An American monkey, an Ateles, after getting drunk on brandy, would never touch it again, and thus was wiser than many men. These trifling facts prove how similar the nerves of taste must be in monkeys and man, and how similarly their whole nervous system is affected.

- "The Descent of Man"

a little understanding of art history would indicate that the appropriate thing to do is understand the context for monkeys at the time of painting.

e: I don't mean to be overly snarky here, but most Renaissance/Enlightenment art is done in a symbolic language, and objects depicted are words, with the arrangement often in a particular grammar, with the context serving as part of the message. It's not particularly difficult to learn this or to access basic symbolic meanings. I don't think the author (hi there), has done enough due diligence. Sorry, Author.

Blooger is one seemingly moribund service I wish Goggle would spend some dev time on.

If Vince Gilligan were to create a 17th century drama chronicling the misadventutes of underworld simian alchemists who sell drugs, I would complain.