1141 - Johann Jakob Haid, "Der Mahler", monkey painter at the easel, singerie, Augsburg, mid-18th century

Johann Jakob Haid, "Der Mahler", monkey painter at the easel, singerie, Augsburg, mid-18th century (1704 Kleineislingen – 1767 Augsburg), mezzotint on paper, inscribed in the plate lower right "I. I. Haid exc.", after Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, titled in the lower margin "LE PEINTRE" and "DER MAHLER." with four lines of verse each in French and German, numbered lower centre "N°. 10", mid-18th century. A monkey in a coat with neck bow and a hat trimmed with feathers at a stool before the easel, with brush and mahlstick at a blank canvas, palette and further brushes in hand, on a table at right the figure of a nude boy and a bottle, in front a paper roll and a portfolio, on the floor a jug, tiled floor. Condition commensurate with age, margins torn with losses, creased and stained, central fold. Image 41x32 cm (HxW), overall 44x34.5 cm (HxW). Johann Jakob Haid (1704 to 1767) worked in Augsburg from 1735 as a painter, mezzotinter and print publisher; he probably spent his journeyman years with the animal painter Johann Elias Ridinger. He became known for some 300 portraits in mezzotint, also called mezzotinto, and for the botanical plates to Christoph Jakob Trew's "Plantae selectae". His son Johann Elias Haid continued the Augsburg art publishing house after his death. The sheet belongs to the singerie, a pictorial genre popular in the 18th century in which monkeys imitate human activities as parody. The model is the composition "Le Singe peintre" by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699 to 1779), who exhibited his monkey paintings at the Paris Salon in 1740; Haid's mezzotint follows the engraving by Pierre-Louis Surugue of 1743. The monkey before the easel is aimed at mere imitation in painting. The French verses are by Charles-Étienne Pesselier, a friend of Chardin.