Two Monkeys

Next time you pop into the Uffizi Gallery look out for this remarkable altar piece. It’s a busy picture so let’s zoom in on a detail.

To get you looking at what I want you to notice I will use some half-remembered army terminology. Reference gold embossed thingummy top right, below left, two monkeys. Keep looking until you see them. Digression; I don’t think I am being fanciful imagining that the clearly delineated faces are those of real people in early 15th century Florence, most likely friends and family of Palla Strozzi who commissioned this stupendous piece of art – a fitting memorial for a great Renaissance man.

Now meet the monkeys again in 1562.

Breughel, surely everyone’s favourite artist, is thought to have drawn  inspiration from Gentile’s monkeys. They are chained in a window. Outside is a hazy view of Antwerp. They are allegorical, it is thought by people who specialise in over-rationalising pictures, and left-hand monkey wearing a Covid mask might represent avarice and greed  and the right-hand red-capped mangabey, prodigality, or might not.

Now a big jump, don’t strain a muscle, of some four and a half centuries.

The monkeys have escaped their shackles. Hazy Antwerp remains mysterious, elegiac and haunting. Breughel’s window has been reimagined by Barry McGlashan, whose 21st century pictures are inspired by Dutch masters like Breughel and Bosch. Breughel’s monkeys hang in the museum island in Berlin. I saw McGlashan’s picture in a private collection in London.

This is dedicated to Ludo de Walden, a friend since 1974, who died this week. Like Palla Strozzi, Ludo is a Renaissance man: lawyer, art expert, opera lover, a man who knew his way round a wine list and a generous friend. Ludo had a zest for life, a gift for friendship and a lovely family. He will be greatly missed by them, his galaxy of friends and me.