This work is part of the series of six panels of monkey scenes in the Museo Nacional del Prado (from P01805 to P01810). The subject matter is drawn from the oeuvre of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Peter van der Borcht, which has been associated with the foolishness of man since the Middle Ages. Teniers successfully captures the ambivalence of mankind in its animal nature.

Four apes are smoking around a table. One of them raises its glass of wine with the intention of toasting with the viewer. Another monkey, asleep, rests its head on a bench. In the left corner of the interior, a waiter toils away at its work. In the foreground, another monkey, in the dimly lit background, fills the jug of a wine barrel.

Díaz Padrón, Matías, El siglo de Rubens en el Museo del Prado: catálogo razonado, Madrid, Prensa Ibérica, 1995, p.1394