Gabriel von Max

A mother monkey lovingly holds her young in her arms - an image of intimate affection. Although not of religious symbolism like the Madonna in the Rose Garden, the monkeys are also surrounded by lushly blooming roses. And as is so often the case with Gabriel von Max, a tongue-in-cheek, humorous title rounds off the work. The humanisation of the monkeys reflects Gabriel von Max's deep interest in the nature of man, his development and his origins. Gabriel von Max, the great spiritualist and follower of Charles Darwin, created the pictorial "proof" of Darwin's theory of evolution with his emotionally charged "portraits" of apes. Max eloquently expressed the essence of this theory, according to which humans and apes have common ancestors and which thus finally put creationism to bed, in his numerous paintings of apes. He enjoyed great success as a "painter of souls", to which his numerous monkey paintings contributed significantly. A small herd of monkeys - at times 14 monkeys populated his estate - which he had bred for study purposes, served as inspiration and illustrative material for his anthropological explorations. From the 1890s onwards, Max created numerous small-format monkey paintings of this kind, which he painted directly for the art market or for collectors in order to use the proceeds to finance the development of his collection of zoological and ethnographic relics, which comprised around 60,000 objects. On his 60th birthday in 1900, the artist was elevated to the nobility. As the signature suggests, the small painting was created after this date.