Axial Commons Image Treasury
Engraving of apes doing human chores in a workshop with a furnace, a pot on a hearth, and a village street visible at right.

Apenspel: Monkeys Performing Human Trades in a Reversed World

An engraving of a reversed world in which apes take over household and workshop tasks: one seated at a furnace blowing through a pipe, another tending a pot over a hearth, and a female ape holding a young one. A village street with figures appears through an open doorway at right.

Artist
Pieter van der Borcht (I)
Date
1558-1608
Medium
Source
Rijksmuseum
Size
4000 × 2636 px
Download full size
Public domain · Rijksmuseum marks it Public Domain Mark; made by 1608.
Rights checked 2026-11-05 · tier A · as stated by the source: Public Domain Mark (Rijksmuseum, image license https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/)

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

More from Alchemy and Hidden Wisdom

Thesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.Two alchemists seeming to produce gold from a furnace; the accompanying text satirises those who pursue alchemy for gold alone. Engraving by C. Weigel, 1698.Two alchemists seeming to produce gold from a furnace; the accompanying text satirises thoThe historie of foure-footed beastes. : Describing the true and liuely figure of euery beast, with a discourse of their seuerall names, conditions, kindes, vertues (both naturall and medicinall) countries of their breed, their loue and hate to mankinde, and the wonderfull worke of God in theircreation, preseruation, and destruction. Necessary for all diuines and students, because the story of euery beast is amplified with narrations out of Scriptures, fathers, phylosophers, physitians, and poets: wherein are declared diuers hyerogliphicks, emblems, epigrams, and other good histories, collected out of all the volumes of Conradus Gesner, and all other writers to this present day / By Edward Topsell.The historie of foure-footed beastes. : Describing the true and liuely figure of euery beaThesaurus thesaurorum.Thesaurus thesaurorum.