Culture

New work by Hieronymus Bosch, discovered

Faces, hell, and Schreckenswesen – pictures of the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch are fascinating for around 500 years. A painting long in the Depot of a Museum was, it could now be assigned.

500 years after the death of the painter Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516) is in his hometown of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, a previously unknown work was presented: “The temptation of Saint Anthony”. Only about 38 x 25 inches large panel shows the knieenden Anthony surrounded by the Bosch, so typical of the strange fantasy characters, and monsters: a monster with a Fuchskopf, one out of the water climbing toad, or a floating sausage. The picture was the painter definitely assigned. This is the result of the largest ever research project to the work of the world-famous painter. The Bosch Research and Conservation Project”, presented on Monday (1.02.2016) his results.

So far the painting to a pupil of Hiernonymus Bosch attributed to

On an oak painted “St. Anthony”, created between 1500 and 1510, is in the possession of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City in the USA. So far, it was a student or a follower of Bosch been attributed. For years it had hidden in the Depot of the Museum located. That will now change.

The painting is “a small, but important addition to the Oeuvre of Bosch,” said the coordinator of the project, Matthijs Ilsink. The image was probably part of a triptych. To the heritage of the late-medieval painter are now 45 works easily, which stood the test of time – about 20 paintings and 25 drawings. Through the use of vont infrared were under the layer of paint, so-called signatures visible. Bosch had with a thick brush in broad terms mapped out in advance, such as the presentation on the plate at the end should look like.

The researchers have even more successes to show for it

Six years had international art experts with the latest techniques, the work of the master are studied and a database will be created. This has allowed the previously unknown or unexplained works more accurately attributed to new conclusions about the functioning of the master to be pulled.

Also, further works have now been able to Bosch to be assigned: the drawing “Höllenlandschaft”, which is located in privately-owned, and the famous triptych “The last judgment” from the groeninge Museum in Bruges in Belgium.

In the course of the project have also been numerous works restored. You are the first time to see again in the so far largest retrospective of the work of Hieronymus Bosch, the on 13. February on the occasion of the 500jährigen anniversary in the Noordbrabants Museum in his hometown of ‘s-Hertogenbosch starts.

kk/so (dpa, KNA)