The Head of an Executioner

The present painting is a detail of a lost painting by Hieronymous Bosch of Christ crowned with Thorns for which Friedlnder lists six other versions, including those in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Inv. no. 840 (M.J. Friedlnder, Early Netherlandish Painting, ed. H. Pauwels, 1969, V, pl. 61, nos. 80a-e). The same executioner appears (with the arrow in his hat facing down) in Bosch's circular Christ Crowned with Thorns in the Monasterio de S. Lorenzo, the Escorial (ibid., pl. 59, no. 79).