For the last 3,500, monkeys have often appeared in European paintings. Here’s a brief survey, with examples from Botticelli, Brueghels, Clara Peeters, Watteau, and others.
Watteau
For once the name is accurate: it originated in the Prussian Empire around 1704, and by 1730 had established itself as a standard if not entirely reliable pigment. Watteau, Canaletto, Hogarth, Blake, Monet, and van Gogh all used it.
In search of realist or naturalist paintings of ballooning and early powered flight. Some surprises, and paintings by Watteau, Puvis de Chavannes, and Henri Rousseau.
Arsenic sulphides, they were both used in alchemy, and used commonly in paintings from Ancient Egypt through to the late 29th century. Tintoretto loved them.
On 22 August 1911, he went to the Louvre to paint the Mona Lisa. It had gone missing, though, and didn’t show up for another 2 years.
Fifteen paintings by 11 artists showing the gardens over more than 130 years.
