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Jheronimus BoschPeriod and date
16de eeuw 15de eeuwMASTERPIECE
Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych featuring the Last Judgement depicts a typically ‘Boschian’ universe, in which heaven (paradise, left) and hell (right) are populated by extraordinary people, animals and fantastical creatures. Museum visitors can scarcely take it all in. This response, of amazement and wonder, is likely comparable to that of the people who stood in front of the painting in Bosch’s own time. Despite its traditional choice of subject matter and triptych form, it may have functioned as a so-called conversation piece: a work intended to be the subject of conversation, primarily between the commissioner or owner of the work and his friends. The intellectual pursuit of looking at art together and conversing about it is familiar in the court context. We know that Bosch moved in such circles. In 1504, for example, he made a Last Judgement (now lost) for the Burgundian duke Philip the Handsome.
