Female Monkey with Hand Mirror

This hand-colored print depicts an anthropomorphized monkey admiring itself in a mirror—a stock subject of 18th-century Rococo art. The animal is dressed in fashionable human garments: a blue bonnet, red-and-white cape, and pleated skirt. Flowering plants frame the composition, rendered in the decorative naturalism typical of the period. Such images, descended from Huet's chinoiserie designs, satirized human vanity and social pretension through animal mockery. The hand-coloring and modest scale suggest popular circulation, reaching middle-class audiences through prints rather than paintings alone.