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# In Robertson Davies’s novel, an expert spots a fake Hubert van Eyck by its monkey
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-romane-izvestnogo-kanadskogo-pisatelia-robertsona-devisa-chto-v-kostiakh-zalozheno-opisana-stsena-vstrechi-mezhdunarodnykh-ekspertov-v-gaage-vo-vtoroi-polovine-30-kh-godov-proshlogo-v/
- Published: 2021-01-16T08:11:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:02:16.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Books, Observations

"In the novel What's Bred in the Bone by the celebrated Canadian writer Robertson Davies, there is a scene in which international experts meet in The Hague in the second half of the 1930s. Art-historian connoisseurs who have come from the USA, France, Belgium and Germany, together with their Dutch colleagues, are to determine the authenticity of a recently discovered canvas by Hubert van Eyck, The Harrowing of Hell. Some of the experts are convinced of the work's authenticity; others harbour doubts based less on serious arguments than on an inner feeling that something about the painting is not right. At a certain moment the floor is given to a young Canadian expert and restorer, Francis Cornish, who declares that the canvas, signed with Hubert van Eyck's monogram, is nothing more than a forgery, and that technical analysis of the painting is superfluous. Shocked by the young connoisseur's self-assurance, the venerable art historians demand that he justify so categorical a denial of the work's authenticity.

To this demand Cornish replies with a question: "How long is it, gentlemen, since you were at the zoo?" Looking at the astonished faces of the luminaries of the art world, the Canadian explains his question: "A single detail of the picture gives us all the information we need <…>. Look at the monkey hanging by its tail from the gates of hell, in the upper left corner."

When the experts object, trying to explain to the young man the iconography of the chained monkey in fifteenth-century art as a symbol of fallen mankind before the coming of Christ, Cornish declares that the monkey is hanging by its own tail. One of the experts sees nothing strange in this and asks: "And why should it not hang by its own tail?"

The young Canadian's answer finally demolishes the attribution of the painting: "Because monkeys in Ghent in the time of the van Eycks did not do that. This monkey is Cebus capucinus, which is found in the New World. The chained monkey of traditional iconography is a native of the Old World, Macacus rhesus. The monkey depicted in the painting <…> was unknown in Europe until the sixteenth century, and Hubert van Eyck, it hardly needs saying, died in 1426."

An excellent text on forgeries of the Russian avant-garde: [https://www.colta.ru/articles/art/26369-konstantin-akinsha-poddelnyy-russkiy-avangard](https://www.colta.ru/articles/art/26369-konstantin-akinsha-poddelnyy-russkiy-avangard?ref=theparnassian.com)