Monkeys and parrot near a fruit basket

In 1746 a printed description of Gaibach, a castle of the counts of Schönborn in Franconia, placed this canvas in the great dining room. It suits a room where meals were served, since it shows a table at the moment everything goes wrong. Two monkeys are raiding a wicker basket of peaches, plums and grapes. One climbs for a sprig of fruit, the other grabs from the far side, and a grey parrot has landed on top of the heap. A gilded ewer lies knocked over, and a porcelain bowl sits upturned on its dish. The Louvre reads these details as a reminder of how quickly pleasures spoil and fine things break, and dates the painting to the 1630s. The Schönborns kept it until a sale in Paris in 1867, and the collector Louis La Caze left it to the Louvre two years later.