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Samplers often tumble all kinds of lovely motifs over each other. Roses, tulips and carnations are lavishly scattered over the many canvases. Bunnies, dogs, cats and birds of various plumage sometimes seem to have run away or flown away from the living environment of the still young embroiderers. But what the hell is a monkey doing in between?
Hey you
According to the Physiologus, a forerunner of the medieval bestiaries, the monkey is a symbol of the devil. He stands for heresy and for paganism. The animal also unites all kinds of undesirable qualities such as folly, laziness, fornication, vanity, imitation and many other vices.
The spinning monkey
Its active counterpart finds its way – via margin drawings in medieval manuscripts – to early craft education. The spinning monkey is among all kinds of other sampler motifs, through which many girls in training schools, whether or not in orphanages, cross-stitch their way through to learn a trade. The monkey usually sits in an armchair. In front of him is a distaff on a wooden base. In his paws he holds the thread to be spun. At the end of that thread hangs a spinning reel. As an independent object, the distaff is the symbol of virtue, of the lady of the house and of the personification of industry. In medieval representations it is one of the attributes of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. Mary, as a young woman, spins the thread with which the veil of the temple is woven. That tissue tears in two as her son undergoes crucifixion (Matthew 27:50-51).
Clotho, Lachesis en Atropos
The motif of the monkey on a distaff is inspired by the Greek Fates, the sisters Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, who rule over the fate of man. Clotho, the spinner and eldest of the bunch, spins the thread of life; Lachesis, the giver of fate, determines the length, and Atropos, the inescapable, cuts the thread. The sisters hold up a mirror to us; life is finite and the thread of life can be broken at any time.
De dwaze aap
Like the Greek goddesses of terror, the monkey tries to spin a thread of life. But pride comes before a fall. His folly hinders the monkey; his attempts fail miserably. In doing so, he shows us that the destiny of man does not lie in his own hands, but in God’s: “man proposes and God disposes”. Man – not knowing how long his life thread is – is told that he must spend his time on earth in a virtuous way. That is a wise lesson for many. In the end, there is still good yarn to be spun with this silly animal.
The canvas by Maria Block can be seen until September 3 in the exhibition Continue This Thread, in the Amsterdam Museum aan de Amstel.