The Haywain Triptych

The Haywain Triptych: Introduction

Hieronymus Bosch's The Haywain Triptych is one of the clearest gateways into the moral imagination of late Bosch. Painted in oil on panel and dated by the Museo Nacional del Prado to 1512-1515, the triptych is now in the Prado in Madrid, where it is catalogued as inventory P002052 and displayed with the museum's Bosch holdings ^[1]. Its subject is not a single biblical episode, even though Scripture, sin, Paradise and Hell run through it. It is a visual sermon about human appetite, social blindness and the difficulty of living as a pilgrim in a world built to distract the soul.

The work belongs beside Bosch's other major triptychs, especially The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Last Judgement and the Lisbon Temptation of Saint Anthony. Yet The Haywain has a special frankness. Where the Garden can feel like a dream of creation, desire and punishment, The Haywain turns moral failure into a public procession. Humanity does not merely stumble into sin. It follows the hay wagon in plain view.

The painting's force comes from that combination of pageant and warning. A huge cart of hay rolls across the middle panel. People from every rank of society grasp, claw, climb, bargain, flirt, fight and kill around it. Angels and devils watch. Christ appears above, almost ignored. To the left, Bosch places the origin of sin in the fall of the rebel angels and the expulsion of Adam and Eve. To the right, Hell is being built, as if damnation is not only a destination but also a construction project supplied by human folly. When the wings close, the image changes to a solitary wayfarer moving through a dangerous landscape. Together, exterior and interior make the triptych a meditation on life as a journey and on the choices that shape that journey ^[1].

Contents

1. Annotated Details
2. At a Glance
3. What Bosch Shows
4. The Closed Triptych: A Pilgrim On The Road
5. The Left Wing: Sin Enters The World
6. The Central Panel: The World Follows The Hay Wagon
7. The Right Wing: Hell Under Construction
8. A Triptych About Avoiding Evil
9. Technique And Underdrawing
10. Provenance, Copies And The Spanish Royal Collections

At a Glance

• ArtistHieronymus Bosch, also known as Jheronimus Bosch
• TitleThe Haywain Triptych
• Date1512-1515
• MediumOil on panel
• CollectionMuseo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
• InventoryP002052
• DisplayRoom 056A, Prado
• FormatTriptych with painted exterior wings
• Main themeHumanity's pursuit of perishable earthly goods, shown through the image of a hay wagon moving toward Hell
• Key related Bosch worksThe Garden of Earthly Delights, The Last Judgement, Death and the Miser and Bosch's wider imagery of Hell

Annotated Details from The Haywain Triptych

The numbered details follow the triptych from the falling angels and linked scenes in Eden through the struggle around the hay cart to the procession and punishments of the right wing.

What Bosch Shows

The open triptych reads from left to right, but it does not behave like a simple narrative strip. Bosch presents a moral history of the human condition. The left wing begins with rebellion and disobedience: angels are cast out of heaven and become monstrous hybrid forms; Adam and Eve enter the story of human sin; Paradise is lost. The central panel shifts from origin to present condition. The world has become a crowd around a hay cart, with every class trying to seize something from a load that cannot last. The right wing carries the movement to its consequence: a Hell where devils work like builders, raising a tower and receiving the sinners who have been drawn along behind the cart ^[1].

Bosch's title image, the hay wagon, is deceptively ordinary. Hay is not gold, jewels or royal treasure. It is temporary, combustible, harvested and consumed. Its value depends on season, need and appetite. That ordinariness is the point. The Prado connects the haywain to Isaiah 40:6, in which flesh is compared to grass and worldly glory to the flower of the field, and also to a Flemish proverb: the world is like a haywain, and each person takes what he can ^[1]. Bosch turns that proverb into a theatre of social desire.

This means the painting is not a tidy catalogue of individual sins. It is wider and sharper than a symbol list. The hay itself stands for the perishable goods people chase, but Bosch is more interested in behaviour than in a single emblem. Around the cart, people struggle for access, status, food, pleasure, money, sex, authority and advantage. Their actions make the meaning visible. Moral failure is not hidden inside the soul. It has gestures: grabbing, climbing, cheating, looking away, riding proudly behind the crowd, ignoring what should command attention.

The image also avoids an easy division between the wicked poor and the corrupt powerful. Bosch's crowd is mixed. There are peasants and peddlers, clerics and rulers, lovers and labourers, ordinary families and public figures. The Prado's interpretation stresses that no social class or place of origin is exempt from the desire to acquire and enjoy earthly possessions ^[1]. That universality is one reason the triptych still feels so modern. Bosch is not only condemning particular vices; he is asking why whole societies move together in the wrong direction.

The Closed Triptych: A Pilgrim On The Road

When the wings are closed, The Haywain Triptych presents the Pilgrimage of Life. A ragged pedlar or wayfarer moves through a landscape of danger and temptation. He carries a heavy basket, turns with a stick against a threatening dog, and passes traces of violence and disorder. Behind him are bandits and travellers; nearby, shepherds dance to a bagpipe, a detail the Prado relates to lust ^[1].

This exterior is crucial because it frames the whole work before the interior is seen. Bosch does not begin with spectacle. He begins with movement, vulnerability and uncertainty. The traveller is on a road whose end he cannot see. He has escaped some dangers, but he is not safe. He has crossed, or is about to cross, thresholds that matter: paths, bridges, moral choices. The result is not a simple portrait of a beggar. It is an image of human life as passage through a damaged world.

The Prado notes that Bosch painted this exterior in full colour rather than in grisaille or semi-grisaille, a choice that distinguishes it from another version of the subject in Rotterdam ^[1]. That matters because grisaille exteriors often create a subdued, sculptural prelude to the more vivid interior. Here the outside already belongs to lived reality. The wayfarer's world has colour, danger and moral texture. The closed work is not a neutral cover; it is part of the argument.

Technical study has also made the exterior more revealing. In the underdrawing, Bosch originally placed a cross behind the bridge, then removed it in the painted surface and replaced the idea with a crucifix in a small altar in a low tree. Nobody in the scene notices it. Figures turn away; ordinary activity continues; even the shepherd playing the bagpipe sits beneath the tree without attending to the sacred sign ^[1]. This is one of the triptych's most Boschian ideas: salvation is present, but human beings do not necessarily look at it.

The exterior therefore prepares the viewer to understand the interior not only as punishment but as neglect. The open panels show society ignoring Christ; the closed wings show the same problem on a smaller scale. Life is a pilgrimage, but the pilgrim walks amid threat, distraction and spiritual inattention.

The Left Wing: Sin Enters The World

The left wing gives the moral origin story. Bosch compresses several episodes into one panel: the expulsion of the rebel angels, the creation of Eve, the temptation by the serpent and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. The panel moves from heavenly disobedience to human fallenness. It is not a calm Eden. It is already unstable.

The falling angels are among the most striking details. As they are driven from heaven, they transform into monstrous hybrids. Bosch often gives sin a bodily imagination: corruption changes shape, making spiritual disorder visible as grotesque form. These creatures are not decorative monsters added for shock. They belong to the logic of transformation. Pride and disobedience deform what had been angelic ^[1].

Below and in the foreground, Adam and Eve are expelled from Paradise. The Prado highlights the Archangel with raised sword and the anthropomorphic bridge that separates the paradisal setting from the world after sin ^[1]. The bridge is more than an architectural curiosity. It gives the transition from innocence to fallen life a bodily and psychological charge. Paradise is not simply behind them; it is divided from ordinary human existence by a structure that seems itself animated.

Bosch's treatment of Eden is compressed rather than expansive. The creation of Eve and the serpent's temptation remain visible, but the panel drives toward expulsion. The moral emphasis is not on luxuriant beginning, as in the left panel of the Garden of Earthly Delights, but on the chain of disobedience and consequence. Sin has an origin, and human life now unfolds after that rupture.

The left wing also explains why the central panel is not merely a satire of greed. The hay wagon belongs to a fallen world. People grasp at hay because human desire has already been disordered. Bosch does not excuse them, but he places their behaviour inside a larger Christian history. Humanity's noisy pursuit of earthly things is the continuation of a story that began with rebellion, temptation and exile.

The Central Panel: The World Follows The Hay Wagon

The central panel is the heart of the triptych. A great wagon loaded with hay moves from left to right, drawn not toward prosperity but toward Hell. Around it, Bosch arranges a dense theatre of human appetite. People crowd the wheels, grab at the hay, fight over scraps, climb ladders, make music, flirt, cheat and injure one another. Some are crushed or killed. Others are too absorbed to see where the cart is going.

The image works because the object of desire is so humble. Hay is not a royal treasure, yet everyone behaves as if it were worth losing the soul. The allusion to Isaiah 40:6 sharpens the point: flesh is like grass, and human glory is as brief as the flower of the field ^[1]. In the context of the Flemish proverb about the world as a haywain, Bosch makes earthly goods look both irresistible and absurd. People risk everything for what will dry, scatter and disappear.

The crowd is socially comprehensive. The Prado notes that all classes are implicated, including the clergy, and that the powerful of the earth follow the haywain on horseback: the Pope, the Emperor, a king associated by fleurs-de-lis with France, and a duke in Burgundian headgear ^[1]. This is not anti-clerical caricature alone, nor is it a peasant morality tale. Bosch imagines sin as a shared public movement. Rank may change how people approach the wagon, but it does not free them from desire.

The clergy receive pointed scrutiny. Figures associated with religious office are not set apart from the scramble. They participate in avarice, appetite and sensual distraction. Bosch's criticism is not modern satire in a secular sense. It is rooted in a devotional culture that expected religious status to mean spiritual responsibility. When clerics appear among the grasping crowd, the moral damage is intensified because the guardians of the sacred have joined the rush toward perishable goods.

Above the hay, a very different drama unfolds. A wealthy couple sits amid music and vegetation, while servants frolic behind them. The Prado reads this upper scene as the triumph of lust, encouraged by music ^[1]. Yet Bosch sets this scene between two opposing figures: a guardian angel looking up toward Christ and a devil sounding a trumpet. The couple's enclosure on top of the hay becomes a fragile island of pleasure, watched by heaven and hell at once.

Christ's presence is one of the panel's sternest details. He appears above the scene, attentive but largely ignored. This repeats the exterior's small unnoticed crucifix. Bosch's world is not godless; it is inattentive. Divine witness is present, but the human crowd is fascinated by the hay. The eye moves from Christ to the angel, from the angel to the devil, from the devil to the cart, and then into the crush of people below. That visual descent is also a moral descent.

The foreground adds everyday immediacy. Women tend children and household tasks. A tooth-puller or quack-like figure appears among the ordinary transactions of life. Bosch does not isolate sin in strange fantasy. He weaves it through normal behaviour: trade, medicine, flirting, music, travel, parenting, bargaining. The devils may pull the wagon, but the human world has already organised itself around the wrong prize.

The ladder leaning against the cart is especially important because it reappears by analogy in the Hell panel. In the centre, people use vertical movement to reach hay. In Hell, devils use a comparable vertical structure to build the tower of punishment. Bosch links desire and damnation through composition. What looks like upward striving in the central panel is not spiritual ascent. It becomes part of the machinery that carries humanity downward.

The Right Wing: Hell Under Construction

The right wing shows Hell, but not as a finished kingdom of punishment. The Prado stresses that Bosch's Hell here is still being made. Devils hurry to complete a circular tower, carry building materials up a long ladder, mix mortar and raise the walls higher ^[1]. The image is terrifying because it is active. Hell is not just waiting; it is being extended.

This building motif gives the panel a particular kind of dread. The devils are not chaotic monsters randomly tormenting the damned. They are workers. They have tasks, tools, coordination and purpose. Their construction echoes human labour, but all labour has been inverted toward damnation. The tower rises as sinners arrive. The social energy that clustered around the hay now finds its architectural counterpart in Hell.

The right panel's innovation lies in its mixture of punishment and process. Bosch's other infernal scenes, including those connected with the Hell imagery of the Garden of Earthly Delights and the eschatological drama of The Last Judgement, often overwhelm the viewer with completed torments. In The Haywain, the emphasis is also on preparation. Devils receive new sinners even as they expand the infernal structure. The destination is terrible because it is ready for more.

The connection to the central panel is direct. The wagon is being pulled toward this place by demonic figures, while those around it remain distracted. The right wing reveals what the centre conceals. The crowd around the hay behaves as if the contest is local, immediate and practical: get hay, gain advantage, enjoy pleasure. Bosch lets the viewer see the wider route. The road ends in a worksite of punishment.

The panel also completes the triptych's movement from origin to consequence. The left wing shows the beginning of sin; the centre shows sin as social behaviour; the right wing shows sin's end. This is why the painting is moral without being blandly moralising. It is not a slogan. It is a system of images in which theological history, daily life, social satire and visual invention intensify one another.

A Triptych About Avoiding Evil

The Prado describes The Haywain as an exemplum of a distinctive kind: not chiefly a lesson in performing good deeds, but a warning about avoiding evil and remaining faithful to that avoidance through life ^[1]. That distinction is useful. Bosch does not fill the open triptych with heroic saints whose actions the viewer should imitate. Instead he shows a world moving wrongly and asks the viewer to recognise the danger.

This negative exemplum fits the painting's structure. The exterior wayfarer must continue through danger without knowing exactly what awaits him. The interior crowd fails at that same task. They are pilgrims who have forgotten pilgrimage. They move, but not toward salvation. They gather, but not around God. They act, but not with wisdom.

The moral warning also depends on Bosch's refusal to keep the viewer comfortably outside the scene. The central panel is funny, crowded and grotesque, but its comedy is not harmless. The proverb about each person taking hay turns into a mirror. Anyone who has desired status, security, pleasure or possession at the expense of attention to God can recognise something of the crowd. The painting's satire is public because the danger is common.

This is where The Haywain Triptych connects strongly with Bosch's wider symbolism. Bosch's images rarely operate as simple codes in which one object always means one thing. Bagpipes, ladders, musical instruments, animals, hybrid beings and bodily distortions acquire force from context. The bagpipe on the exterior participates in a scene of lust and distraction; music on top of the hay accompanies erotic dalliance; hybrid forms make fallen spirits visible; the ladder links acquisitive striving to infernal construction. Meaning is built through relationships within the picture.

The same caution matters for Bosch's style and technique. His moral imagination is inseparable from how he paints. Thin paint, visible underdrawing, rapid schematic lines and sharp changes between tiny details and broad narrative movement all help create a world that feels unstable and alive. The viewer sees not only moral disorder but the speed and inventiveness with which Bosch gives disorder form.

Technique And Underdrawing

The Prado's technical account of The Haywain is unusually valuable because it shows how Bosch planned and adjusted the image. The underdrawing was made with a brush in a very liquid medium. Because the paint layers are thin and transparent, that drawing has become visible in many areas ^[1]. The result is a work in which the artist's first decisions are still close to the surface.

In general, Bosch drew rapidly, using simple schematic lines to place the principal elements. He reinforced outlines, folds and selected figures. Faces are often almost caricatural, sometimes indicated with just a few marks for eyes, nose and mouth. More developed modelling appears in only certain areas, including the angel on the haywain looking up toward heaven and the Archangel expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise ^[1].

This unevenness is not a weakness. It is part of Bosch's method. The triptych moves between panoramic crowd scenes and charged details. Some passages need quick notation because their force lies in accumulation: people, gestures, animals, tools, scraps of activity. Other figures need greater intensity because they carry theological weight. The angel looking toward Christ and the Archangel at Paradise are not simply more polished; they are morally focal.

The technical evidence also records changes between underdrawing and paint. Some are minor adjustments of position or correction. Others reveal Bosch's thinking about meaning. The most striking example is the removed cross near the bridge on the exterior wings, replaced in the final painting by the small crucifix in the tree altar that no one notices ^[1]. This is not merely a compositional edit. It changes how sacred presence operates in the scene. Instead of a more direct cross by the road, Bosch gives the viewer a hidden, overlooked sign.

Technical study of Bosch's Prado paintings has also helped scholars distinguish originals from workshop or follower works. Carmen Garrido Perez's study of Bosch's creative process at the Prado emphasises the importance of examining supports, underdrawings and paint layers in the Garden, the Adoration, The Haywain and other Prado works when separating Bosch's hand from later studio or follower productions ^[7]. That question matters especially for The Haywain because the Spanish version history is complicated.

Provenance, Copies And The Spanish Royal Collections

The Prado version of The Haywain Triptych has a secure modern home, but its early history is not fully documented. The museum is careful about this. The painting is first recorded with certainty in the 1636 inventory of the Alcazar in Madrid ^[1]. Before that point, the exact circumstances of its commission, first ownership and entry into the Spanish royal collections remain uncertain.

Confusion has long surrounded the existence of different versions. Two Spanish works are central to the problem: the Prado triptych and the copy associated with El Escorial. Philip II bought a Haywain from the heirs of the collector and courtier Felipe de Guevara in 1570. Guevara regarded that work as an original by Bosch, and it was recorded as such in the sale. Some later scholars also accepted it as Bosch's own work. Technical analysis, however, showed that the Guevara and El Escorial version is a copy of the Prado original ^[1].

This distinction is essential. The Prado triptych is the object discussed here. The El Escorial work belongs to the reception and copying history of the composition. It can tell us something about the fame, value and circulation of Bosch's invention in Spain, but it should not be collapsed into the Prado painting's own provenance.

The Prado's later provenance is unusually eventful. The work appears in the Alcazar inventory in 1636 and at the Casa de Campo in Madrid in 1788. It was broken up during the Peninsular Wars. The central panel entered the collection of the first Marquis of Salamanca and was acquired in 1848 by Isabel II, who sent it to the Palace of Aranjuez and later to El Escorial. The left panel, Paradise, entered the Prado in 1839. The right panel, Hell, remained at El Escorial until 1914, when Alfonso XIII ceded the right and central panels to the Prado so that the triptych could be reunited. The complete work has been in the Museo del Prado since 1914 ^[1].

That history affects how the painting is seen. A triptych is an object of sequence and hinge, of opening and closing, of relationships between panels. When separated, the parts retain their imagery but lose part of their structural force. Reuniting the triptych restored the movement from exterior pilgrimage to interior sin and punishment. The painting's meaning depends on that choreography.

Bosch, Devotion And Social Satire

Bosch's art grew out of the religious and urban culture of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he lived and worked. The surviving documentary record for his life is limited, but BoschDoc and local heritage research give a framework for understanding him as a painter formed in a Netherlandish city of workshops, patrons, religious institutions and devotional practice ^[6]. His membership in the Brotherhood of Our Lady is especially important for the broader picture of Bosch as an artist working within, rather than outside, late medieval religious culture.

The Haywain Triptych should therefore not be treated as a private hallucination detached from its world. Its monsters and comic distortions are astonishing, but its central concerns are recognisable within Christian moral teaching: sin, temptation, avarice, lust, the passing nature of earthly things, the danger of spiritual neglect and the final consequences of human choice. Bosch makes those themes unforgettable by translating them into crowded visual drama.

The satire is social because sin is social. The crowd around the haywain includes rulers, clergy, lovers, workers and ordinary families. Bosch does not simply tell the viewer that worldly desire is dangerous. He shows a whole public order participating in it. The powerful ride behind the wagon with ceremonial confidence; the poor scramble nearer the wheels; religious figures share in the appetite they should resist. Everyone is implicated, but not everyone is implicated in the same way.

This social range links The Haywain to Bosch's paintings more broadly. Again and again, Bosch uses compact human actions to reveal spiritual condition: the miser visited by Death, the fools in a boat, the tempted saint surrounded by fabricated marvels, the wayfarer moving through moral danger. His art is not only visionary; it is observational. He notices how bodies lean, hands grasp, eyes turn aside and crowds form around desire.

The triptych also belongs to a longer history of Netherlandish triptych innovation. Lynn F. Jacobs has argued that Bosch transformed the traditional triptych format by increasing the importance of exteriors, unifying panels in unusual ways and introducing subject matter that could stretch devotional conventions ^[8]. The Haywain demonstrates that transformation clearly. Its format recalls religious altarpieces, but its central image is a moral proverb made monumental. Bosch takes a familiar hinged structure and uses it to stage the life of fallen humanity.

The Haywain And The Garden Of Earthly Delights

Because both paintings are Prado triptychs by Bosch, The Haywain is often considered beside The Garden of Earthly Delights. The comparison is useful, but the two works should not be flattened into the same message. The Garden is larger, earlier by the Prado's dating, and more enigmatic in its passage from Eden to a central world of naked human activity and then to Hell ^[3]. The Haywain is later, more compact in moral design and more direct in its social satire.

Both works use triptych structure to connect beginning, human behaviour and consequence. Both place humanity between Paradise and Hell. Both reward close looking while resisting a single simple explanation. Yet The Haywain gives the viewer a sharper verbal handle through proverb and Scripture. The hay wagon is a central moral engine. It gathers the crowd and moves the entire composition toward judgment.

The difference can be felt in the role of pleasure. In the Garden, pleasure fills the central field in ways that have produced centuries of debate: paradise, false paradise, lust, prelapsarian fantasy, moral warning, courtly play and other readings have all been proposed. In The Haywain, pleasure is more clearly bound to possession and blindness. The couple on top of the hay enjoy music and sensual dalliance, but the wagon is already moving toward Hell. The image gives less room for ambiguity about direction.

Together the works show Bosch's range as a moral painter. He could make sin look bewilderingly abundant, as in the Garden, or painfully public, as in The Haywain. He could invent demons and hybrid bodies, but he could also make hay, a ladder, a bridge and a small ignored crucifix carry enormous weight. That is why any study of Bosch's symbolism has to stay close to composition and context rather than isolating details as fixed tokens.

The Haywain, Last Judgement And Hell

The Haywain also stands in close relation to Bosch's Last Judgment imagery. The right wing's Hell is less a static infernal landscape than an expanding building site. Devils are making room, constructing punishment as sinners arrive. This differs from the overwhelming world of the Garden's Hell and from the grand eschatological structure of The Last Judgement, but all three works share Bosch's fascination with the consequences of disordered desire.

The painting's Hell is especially chilling because it is practical. Tools, ladders, materials and labour belong to the ordinary human world, yet here they are turned toward damnation. The devils' industry reflects the crowd's industry around the hay. Human beings worked hard to seize what perishes; Hell works hard to receive them.

This compositional logic strengthens the painting's moral satire. The right wing does not merely punish the centre; it completes it. The ladder beside the hay and the ladder beside the tower rhyme with one another. The movement of the wagon leads to the movement of infernal construction. What humans build through desire, Bosch answers with what devils build in Hell.

For readers coming from Bosch's Hell imagery, The Haywain is valuable because it shows damnation as a consequence of ordinary social life. There are monstrous punishments, but the deeper horror is continuity. The world around the wagon and the world of Hell are connected by road, direction and repeated forms.

Why The Haywain Still Matters

The continued power of The Haywain Triptych lies in its refusal to let moral failure remain abstract. The painting is crowded, funny, frightening and exact. People do not simply "sin" in a general theological sense. They reach for hay. They follow a wagon. They ignore Christ. They mistake movement for purpose and acquisition for meaning.

That clarity makes the work approachable without making it simple. Bosch's details invite patient looking: the fallen angels changing shape, Adam and Eve at the threshold of exile, the grasping figures under the wagon, the rulers riding behind, the angel and devil above the hay, the tower rising in Hell, the lone traveller on the closed wings. But the details are held together by a powerful structure. Closed, the work asks how one travels through life. Open, it shows what happens when the road is governed by appetite.

The painting is also a reminder that Bosch's reputation for fantasy can obscure his discipline. The Haywain is carefully organised. Its exterior and interior answer each other. Its panels move through origin, present action and consequence. Its technical evidence shows rapid but purposeful drawing, selective modelling and meaningful revision. Its proverb and biblical allusion are not ornamental explanations added after the fact; they are embedded in the way the image works.

For that reason, The Haywain Triptych is one of the best works through which to understand Hieronymus Bosch as a painter of moral vision. It connects biography, workshop practice, devotional culture, social satire, technical invention and the problem of attribution and copies. It also points outward to the larger Bosch cluster: the biography of a painter from 's-Hertogenbosch, the structure of his paintings, the interpretive challenge of his style and technique, and the care needed when discussing workshop and attribution.

The hay wagon keeps moving. That is the painting's great visual fact. Bosch fills the world around it with noise, comedy, violence, rank, music, devotion ignored and damnation prepared. The viewer sees the road before the crowd does. The question the triptych leaves behind is not only what the hay means, but why everyone is willing to follow it.

Artworks and related attributions

Browse paintings, drawings and related attributions. Records group triptychs, fragments and two-sided sheets where appropriate. Dates follow the cited museum records or catalogue headings and are generally estimates. Rows marked “2016 catalogue” report that publication’s attribution and collection information; these are dated opinions, rather than a claim that every work is an accepted autograph Bosch.

79 records

Search records Medium All media Drawing Painting Reset

Name	Date	Medium, attribution and collection
A Crossbowman	Second half of the sixteenth century	Oil on oak panel · Copy after Hieronymus Bosch · Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid · P002695 Source 1. Source 2.
A Woman Spinning and an Old Woman	Museum estimates: about 1480–1490 for the women and 1500–1505 for the reverse; the precise chronology is disputed	Pen and brown and grey ink on the front; pen and brown ink on the reverse · Hieronymus Bosch · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam · N 190 recto and verso (PK) Source 1. Source 2.
Adoration of the Child in Cologne	Second half of the sixteenth century	Oil on oak panel · Imitator of Hieronymus Bosch, in the city collection record · Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne · WRM 0474 Source 1. Source 2.
Adoration of the Magi in Philadelphia	Early sixteenth century in the museum record; around 1495–1520 in the BRCP catalogue	Oil on oak panel · Hieronymus Bosch in the museum record; workshop of Bosch in the 2016 BRCP catalogue · Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, 1917 · 1321; museum object 103592 Source 1. Source 2.
Adoration of the Magi — New York	c.1470–1480	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on oak · Metropolitan Museum 13.26 2016 catalogue.
Adoration of the Magi — Prado triptych	c.1494	Oil on oak; grisaille exterior · Bosch · Prado P002048 Object source.
Adoration of the Magi — three associated fragments	c.1515–1535	2016 catalogue: Follower of Bosch · Two Shepherds / Retinue in Philadelphia; associated Adoration in private collection in 2016 2016 catalogue.
Ascent of the Blessed — Venice	c.1505–1515	Oil on panel · Bosch · Gallerie dell’Accademia; Visions of the Hereafter Object source.
Battle of the Birds and Mammals	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch; pen and brown ink · Berlin KdZ 14715 2016 catalogue.
Beggars and Musicians	Around 1530–1540	Ink and wash on paper · Unknown follower of Hieronymus Bosch · Albertina, Vienna · 7798 Source 1. Source 2.
Christ Carrying the Cross Drawing	Around 1470 in the museum catalogue	Black chalk or charcoal, pen and brush in brown ink, white corrections · Anonymous, workshop of Rogier van der Weyden · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam · N 81 recto and verso (PK) Source 1. Source 2.
Christ Carrying the Cross in Vienna	Around 1490–1510 in the current KHM record and BRCP catalogue	Oil on oak, painted on both sides · Hieronymus Bosch; possible workshop involvement in the Passion side discussed by the BRCP · Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna · Gemäldegalerie, GG 6429 Source 1. Source 2.
Christ Carrying the Cross — El Escorial	c.1495–1505	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on oak · Patrimonio Nacional 10014739 2016 catalogue.
Christ Carrying the Cross — Ghent	c.1510–1516 (museum)	Oil on panel · Bosch in museum listing; authorship disputed · MSK Ghent 1902-H Object source.
Christ Mocked — London	c.1510	Oil on wood · Bosch · National Gallery NG4744 Object source.
Concert in the Egg, After Hieronymus Bosch	Around 1561; third quarter of the sixteenth century	Oil on canvas · Anonymous, after Hieronymus Bosch · Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille · P 816 Source 1. Source 2.
Conjurer / Comical Concert — Louvre drawing	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch (recto), follower (concert verso) · Pen and brown ink · Louvre INV 19197 2016 catalogue.
Conjurer / Cross-bearing and beggars — Liège sheet	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch (verso), follower (recto) · Pen and brown ink · Album d’Arenberg 534 2016 catalogue.
Crowning with Thorns — El Escorial	c.1530–1540	2016 catalogue: Follower of Bosch; oil on oak · Patrimonio Nacional 10014743 2016 catalogue.
Crucifixion with a Donor	Circa 1495–1505; Circa 1490–1500	Oil on oak panel · Hieronymus Bosch · Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels · 6639 Source 1. Source 2.
Death and the Miser Drawing	Not securely established; probably made after the painting	Pen and brush, dark ink and white highlights on prepared paper · Workshop of Hieronymus Bosch in the BRCP catalogue; alternatives recorded by the Louvre · Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings, Paris · RF 6947, Recto Source 1. Source 2.
Death and the Miser — Washington	c.1485/1490 (NGA)	Oil on panel · Bosch · National Gallery of Art 1952.5.33 Object source.
Ecce Homo Triptych — Boston	c.1495–1500; wings c.1500/1503	2016 catalogue: Workshop of Bosch; oil on oak · Museum of Fine Arts Boston; several production phases 2016 catalogue.
Ecce Homo — Frankfurt	c.1490	Mixed technique on oak · Bosch · Städel 1577 Object source.
Fall of the Damned — Venice	c.1505–1515	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on panel · Visions of the Hereafter · Venice 2016 catalogue.
Garden of Earthly Delights	1490–1500 (Prado)	Oil on oak; grisaille exterior · Bosch · Prado; triptych Object source.
Gluttony and Lust / Allegory of Intemperance — Yale fragment	c.1500–1510 (group dating)	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on oak · Yale 1959.15.22; fragment associated with Ship of Fools 2016 catalogue.
Group of Ten Spectators, a Follower of Bosch	Around 1510–1540 in the current museum record	Pen and two brown inks on paper, with a brown framing line · Follower of Hieronymus Bosch in the Morgan record; Bosch in the BRCP catalogue · Morgan Library & Museum, New York · I, 112 Source 1. Source 2.
Head of an Old Woman	About 1500	Oil on panel · Attributed to Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam · 2439 (OK) Source 1. Source 2.
Hell and the Flood — Rotterdam panels	Around 1515 in the museum records; around 1510–1520 in the BRCP catalogue	Oil on oak panels · Jheronimus Bosch in the museum records; workshop of Bosch in the BRCP catalogue · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Source 1. Source 2.
Hermit Saints Triptych	Circa 1495–1505	Oil on oak panels · Hieronymus Bosch · Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice · 2044 Source 1. Source 2.
Infernal Landscape	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch; pen and brown ink, red accent · Private collection in 2016 2016 catalogue.
Infernal Scene with Anvil / Monster Studies	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch; attribution debated in entry · Pen and brown ink · Berlin KdZ 548 2016 catalogue.
Infernal Scene with Tree-Man / Standing Man	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Workshop of Bosch; pen and brown ink · Dresden C 1875; historical reverse title includes a proposed prophet 2016 catalogue.
Job Triptych — Bruges	c.1510–1520	2016 catalogue: Workshop of Bosch; oil on oak · Groeningemuseum / Hoeke loan in 2016 2016 catalogue.
Last Judgement — Bruges triptych	c.1495–1505	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on oak · Groeningemuseum 2016 catalogue.
Last Judgement — Munich fragment	c.1530–1540	2016 catalogue: Follower of Bosch; oil on oak · Alte Pinakothek 5752 2016 catalogue.
Last Judgement — Vienna triptych	c.1500–1505 (BRCP 2016)	Oil on oak · Bosch and workshop (BRCP 2016) · Academy of Fine Arts Vienna 2016 catalogue.
Man in a Basket and Comic Figures	Around 1500–1515 in the museum record	Pen and brown ink on paper; the reverse is catalogued as iron-gall ink · Hieronymus Bosch in the current Albertina record; attribution has been debated · Albertina, Vienna · 7797 recto and verso Source 1. Source 2.
Man Seen from Behind	About 1550–1569; About 1565–1570	Traces of black chalk, pen and brush in light brown ink · Anonymous, circle of Pieter Bruegel the Elder · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Source 1. Source 2.
Mary and John at the Foot of the Cross	About 1440	Brush in grey and black · Unknown, possibly Netherlandish · Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden · C 815 Source 1. Source 2.
Model Sheet with ‘Witches’	Disputed; proposals depend on the attribution	Pen and brown ink; the BRCP also records underlying black chalk · Hieronymus Bosch; follower attributions also recorded · Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris · INV 19721 recto Source 1. Source 2.
Peasant and Three Bust-Length Figures	1401–1500	Brown pen over a black preliminary drawing · Attributed to the Master of the Drapery Studies; Bosch circle also recorded · Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · KdZ 777 Source 1. Source 2.
River to Hell — Venice	c.1505–1515	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on panel · Visions of the Hereafter · Venice 2016 catalogue.
Saint Anthony and a Concert in an Egg	Around 1510–1525 in the museum’s 2016–17 exhibition texts	Pen in light and dark brown inks · Workshop of Hieronymus Bosch; underlying monsters: Bosch (BRCP), possibly Bosch (exhibition text) · Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · KdZ 711 recto and verso Source 1. Source 2.
Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child	c.1500; 1490–1505 in restoration material	Oil on panel · Bosch · Boijmans St 26 Object source.
Saint James and Hermogenes	About 1551–1575 in the KIK-IRPA catalogue	Oil on wood, painted on both sides · Anonymous follower of Hieronymus Bosch · Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes · P.46.1.44; older number 176 Source 1. Source 2.
Saint Jerome at Prayer	Circa 1485–1495	Oil on oak panel · Hieronymus Bosch · Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent · 1908-H Source 1. Source 2.
Saint John on Patmos / Passion Scenes	c.1495–1505; estimates vary	Oil on oak · Bosch · Gemäldegalerie Berlin 1647A Object source.
Saint John the Baptist in Meditation	Late 15th century; c.1485–1510 (Prado exhibition)	Oil on panel · Bosch · Lázaro Galdiano 8155 Object source.
Saint Liberata Triptych	Circa 1495–1505	Oil on oak panels · Hieronymus Bosch · Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice · 2045 Source 1. Source 2.
Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things	1505–1510 (Prado)	Oil on poplar · Bosch (Prado); workshop/follower disputed · Prado Object source.
Ship of Fools — Louvre painting	1475–1500 (record); c.1505–1515 (exhibition)	Oil on oak · Bosch · Louvre RF 2218; fragment Object source.
Ship of Fools — Louvre workshop drawing	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Workshop of Bosch · Pen, brush, grey-brown ink and white highlights on prepared paper · Louvre RF 3714 2016 catalogue.
Studies of Monsters	About 1530–1550, according to the current Ashmolean record	Pen and brown ink on laid paper, both faces · Anonymous follower of Hieronymus Bosch · Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford · WA1863.155 Source 1. Source 2.
Studies of Saint Anthony and Monsters	No execution date specified in the current Louvre records	Pen and brown ink on paper · Bosch listed; reverse questioned by Louvre; BRCP accepts both faces · Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris · INV 20871 recto and verso Source 1. Source 2.
Temptation of Saint Anthony — Kansas City fragment	c.1500–1510	2016 catalogue: Bosch; oil on oak · Nelson-Atkins 35–22 2016 catalogue.
Temptation of Saint Anthony — Lisbon triptych	c.1500	Oil on oak · Bosch · Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga 1498 Pint Museum.
Temptation of Saint Anthony — Prado panel	c.1530–1540	2016 catalogue: Follower of Bosch (2016 opinion); oil on oak · Prado P002049 2016 catalogue.
Terrestrial Paradise	Approximately 1505–1515	Oil on oak panel · Hieronymus Bosch · Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice Source 1. Source 2.
The Burning Ship Drawing	1500–1520	Pen and iron gall ink on paper · Attributed to Hieronymus Bosch · Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Graphic Collection · HZ-2554; numbered 2554 in the BRCP catalogue Source 1. Source 2.
The Comical Barber Scene	About 1550–1580, according to the British Museum	Pen and brown ink, grey and brown wash, over black chalk · Anonymous follower, after Hieronymus Bosch · British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London · 1854,0628.46 Source 1. Source 2.
The Conjuror, After Hieronymus Bosch	Probably after 1525; around 1530–1540 in the BRCP technical report	Oil on oak panel · Anonymous follower of Hieronymus Bosch · Musée Ducastel-Vera, Saint-Germain-en-Laye · 872.1.87 Source 1. Source 2.
The Cure of Folly / Extraction of the Stone of Madness	1501–1505 (Prado)	Oil on oak · Bosch (Prado); workshop/follower disputed · Prado P002056 Object source.
The Entombment Drawing	About 1505–1515, current museum record	Brush and black and grey ink, with grey wash, over black chalk · Workshop of Hieronymus Bosch; drawn by the Master of the Prado Haywain Triptych; Hieronymus Bosch, argued by the BRCP in 2016 · British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London · 1952,0405.9 Source 1. Source 2.
The Gathering of the Birds	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch; pen and brown ink · Berlin KdZ 13136 2016 catalogue.
The Haywain — Prado triptych	1510–1516 (BRCP 2016)	Oil on oak · Bosch (BRCP 2016) · Prado; separate Escorial version exists 2016 catalogue.
The Hearing Forest and the Seeing Field	Circa 1500–1505	Pen and brown ink on paper · Hieronymus Bosch; reverse: Bosch and workshop · Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · KdZ 549, front and reverse Source 1. Source 2.
The Owl’s Nest — Rotterdam	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch; pen and brown ink · Boijmans N 175 2016 catalogue.
The Passion Triptych in Valencia	Workshop of Bosch, about 1510–1520; Follower of Bosch; centre about 1530–1540, wings about 1540–1550	Oil and gold on oak panels · Workshop of Bosch, about 1510–1520; Follower of Bosch; centre about 1530–1540, wings about 1540–1550 · Museu de Belles Arts de València Source 1. Source 2.
The Pedlar / Wayfarer — Rotterdam	c.1500 (museum)	Oil on panel · Bosch · Boijmans 1079 (OK); rejoined exterior Object source.
The Tree-Man — Vienna drawing	c.1505	Pen and brown ink · Bosch · Albertina, Vienna Object source.
The Wedding at Cana, After Hieronymus Bosch	Approximately 1560 in the current museum record	Oil on panel, 93 cm high × 72 cm wide · Anonymous, after Hieronymus Bosch · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, St 25 Source 1. Source 2.
Two Fantastical Creatures — Berlin KdZ 550	Around 1505–1515 in the museum’s 2016 exhibition text	Pen in brown ink on reddish prepared laid paper · Hieronymus Bosch · Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · KdZ 550, recto and verso Source 1. Source 2.
Two Figures Wearing Mitres	About 1480	Oil on panel · Anonymous (Boijmans); Bosch circle (RKD) · Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam · 1177 (OK) Source 1. Source 2.
Two Men and the Temptation of Eve	About 1505–1515 in the Prado’s 2016 exhibition guide	Pen and grey-brown ink on paper · Hieronymus Bosch in the 2016 catalogues discussed here · Private collection, as recorded in 2016 Source 1. Source 2.
Two Men Fighting	Not specified in the current Louvre record	Pen and brown ink · In the manner of Hieronymus Bosch · Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris · INV 20660 recto; formerly NIII 8896 and MA 8400 Source 1. Source 2.
Two Men — Berlin KdZ 5210	Not specified in catalogue heading	2016 catalogue: Bosch questioned · Pen, brush, ink, chalk and white highlights · Berlin KdZ 5210; historical title Two Oriental Men 2016 catalogue.
Two Monsters — Berlin KdZ 547	Approximately 1500–1510 in Berlin's 2016 exhibition catalogue; an estimated range	Pen and brown ink on paper · Hieronymus Bosch · Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin · KdZ 547, drawn on both sides Source 1. Source 2.

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Museo Nacional del Prado, The Haywain Triptych, Hieronymus Bosch, 1512-1515: View source
2. Museo Nacional del Prado, Technical study: The Haywain Triptych (1512-1515) by Bosch, with Pilar Silva and Jaime Garcia-Maiquez: View source
3. Museo Nacional del Prado, The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych: View source
4. Bosch Research and Conservation Project and Closer to Bosch, high-resolution corpus and technical research presentation: View source
5. Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij, Ron Spronk, Luuk Hoogstede, Robert G. Erdmann, Rik Klein Gotink, Hanneke Nap and Daan Veldhuizen, Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman: Catalogue Raisonne, Yale University Press, 2016: View source
6. BoschDoc / Huygens ING / KNAW, documentary material on Hieronymus Bosch, his family, surroundings, patrons and works: View source
7. Carmen Garrido Perez, "El Bosco: el proceso creativo de sus pinturas," Materia, 10-11, 2016, summary via Dialnet: View source
8. Lynn F. Jacobs, "The Triptychs of Hieronymus Bosch," The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2000: View source
9. Review of Bosch: The 5th Centenary Exhibition, College Art Association Reviews, with discussion of the Prado exhibition and The Haywain: View source