Singerie
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Singerie is the French word for "Monkey Trick". It is a genre depicting of monkeys apring human behavior, often fashionably attired, a diverting sight, always with a gentle cast of mild satire. Singeries were popular among French artists in the early 18th century, but the term is most usually reserved for a type of decorative painting associated with French Rococo, but singeries are an old idea: C. Alfred detected a love of singerie that he found characteristic of the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.
It revived with the French decorator and designer Jean Berain the Elder, who included dressed figures of monkeys in a lot of his wall decorations, and the great royal ébéniste André-Charles Boulle.
In France the most famous such rococo decor is the "Petit Singerie at the Château de Chantilly; in England the French painter Andien de Clermont is also known for his Singeries, the most famous decorates the ceiling of the Monkey Room at Monkey Island Hotel, located on Monkey Island in Bray-on-Thames, England. The Grade I listed buildings that have housed guests since 1840 were built in the 1740s by Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough.
