Two Chained Monkeys

This is a tiny panel, painted in 1562, and behind the two monkeys chained to a ring you can see the harbour and rooftops of Antwerp, the richest trading city in Europe at that moment. Bruegel borrowed the motif of chained monkeys from an earlier Italian painting, but here they sit hunched in an archway with the free, busy port just beyond them. Look closely at the chain and there is a strange detail. It ends in a toggle pushed through the ring, the kind you could work loose and slip back out if you tried. The empty nutshells scattered in front of them are the usual reading, that they sold their freedom for something small.