Hell,
oil on panel, 124 x 97.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Alvares collection, Lisbon (according to a note written by M. J. Friedländer in the photo-archive of M. J. Friedländer)

Literature:
Marc Rudolf De Vrij, Jheronimus Bosch. An Exercise in Common Sense, Amsterdam 2012, cat. B. 19.10

The present representation of hell is based on certain motifs of the right wing of Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights from 1500 (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Because of the inclusion of musical instruments, this wing is also referred to as Musical Hell. Various musical instruments are used as instruments of torture to punish the sinners in hell. Similar to the Prado painting, the upper part of the composition shows a ruinous townscape. Fire and other light sources mysteriously illuminate the scene, which is set in the dark of night.

The motifs used by Hieronymus Bosch continued to enjoy tremendous popularity after the master’s death in 1516. Countless copies and paraphrases dating from the 16th century, particularly such looking back to the right wing of the Garden of Earthly Delights as a source of inspiration, attest to what literally became a fashion. In the present composition, several groups of motifs from the Prado’s Hell wing have been combined to form a new whole. The depiction follows the original motifs in detail, but occasionally varies their colours and, in individual cases, introduces such new pictorial ideas as the money pouch in the lower left corner, the winged demon with the flag to the left of the central element of the hurdy-gurdy, the figure beneath the knife blade grabbing the corner of the flag, which bears the emblem of a toad, and the fiery mouth of hell at the lower margin. In terms of composition, the present panel deviates from the Madrid prototype. Featuring dimensions coming closer to a landscape format, its horizon line has been lowered; the individual groups of motifs have been rearranged, and their original proportions have sometimes been modified. The present picture also differs from the Prado’s triptych in the manner of painting. Whereas the motifs in the background, executed with few brushstrokes and opaque colours, indeed resemble those of the prototype in terms of painting technique, the handling of the motifs in the foreground and middle ground is different from that of their counterparts in the Garden of Earthly Delights, for which the paint layers were rather applied in glazes and whose modelling is more three-dimensional.

The composition of the present painting recurs in detail in a picture (see: G. Unverfehrt, Hieronymus Bosch, Die Rezeption seiner Kunst im frühen 16. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1980, cat. 150; De Vrij 2012, cat. B. 19.14; RKD no. 51984, see fig. 1) and in a panel owned by Walter Paech until 1940 (see: G. Unverfehrt, op. cit., cat. 150; De Vrij 2012, cat. B. 19.13). In both paintings, however, a nude male figure and a bearded man holding another male figure in his lap have been added at the lower and upper margins respectively, by which the composition has been re-interpreted as a depiction of the rich man in Hell spotting Lazarus in Abraham’s lap (Luke 16: 23). As both panels feature almost the same dimensions as the present composition – 125.5 x 98 and 124 x 96 cm versus 124 x 97.5 cm – all of them seem to originate from the same workshop. The same holds true for a paraphrase of the right wing of the Garden of Earthly Delights mentioned in literature, which likewise measures 125.5 x 98 cm (see: Unverfehrt, op.cit., cat. 161d/d; De Vrij, op. cit., cat. B. 19.15).

Gerd Unverfehrt dates the Paech panel to the period around 1540–50 (see: G. Unverfehrt, op. cit., p. 221). This also complies with the painting style of the present composition, which suggests that the present painting also dates from the middle of the 16th century.

Additional image:
Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Hell (with additional figures of Tondal and the Holy Trinity), RKD no. 51984
© RKD - Netherlands Institute of Art History