The Monkey and the Cat

Abraham Hondius’s “The Monkey and the Cat” is an oil on canvas from the probably 1670s. It depicts a fable where a monkey tricks a cat into fetching chestnuts from a fire. The cat burns its paw while the monkey eats the chestnuts. Cleveland Museum of Art.

The painting is part of the Dutch collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The composition centers on the two animals near a fireplace.

There is no evidence of the fable’s existence before the 15th century, yet it appears in 17th-century Aesop’s Fables collections. It inspired idioms about being someone’s dupe.

Abraham Hondius was active during the Dutch Golden Age. He specialized in animal subjects and lived from 1631 to 1691.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.82

https://oolf.net/open-art/hondius-the-monkey-and-the-cat/