Balanced upon the top rung of a wooden chair is a paper-mache monkey with well-detailed painted facial features, glass eyes with leather eyelids, hinged jaw with two rows of teeth, carton torso and legs, wire upper arms, metal hands, wearing silk troubadour costume, and carrying a wooden mandolin. The amusing automaton has eccentric mechanism; when music plays, the monkey moves its head in a circular and nodding motion, blinks eyes, opens and closes mouth as though singing, and strums the mandolin. Meanwhile, the chair tips side-to-side and then backward as though about to fall over, but always returns to upright just in time.

The music movement is hidden inside the chair. On the left side is the key winding the movement and lever to activate it.

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