Principessa con una scimmia

Rozentāls painted this in 1913, near the end of his short life. He would die three years later, at 50. A tall, narrow canvas shows a richly dressed princess seated with a small monkey held on a golden chain. He came back to the image repeatedly in his final years, and his contemporaries read it as being about themselves, about artists. The princess, on this reading, is great and beautiful art, and the monkey is the artist who serves and amuses her, kept on a golden leash. Others saw in it the power of money over the painter. It became the most successful work of his career; he sold it for 1,000 roubles, the highest price he had ever been paid for a picture.