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拍品專文
This intriguing panel, which in the early twentieth century was believed to be by Hieronymus Bosch himself, belongs to a small group of Boschian images painted within the master's lifetime. Bosch's influence would come to have a lasting and widely felt impact on the visual arts throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Perhaps the most inventive and individual painter working in the Netherlands during the late Middle Ages, Bosch’s unique imaginative powers and vivid pictorial vocabulary proved a source of constant inspiration for painters seeking to imagine and visualise the otherworldly.
The Harrowing of Hell seems first to have appeared in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, written in the mid-fourth century, and was later adapted and disseminated by popular theological texts, like the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine. While no depictions of this subject by Bosch are known today, four apparently different pictures of this, or closely related subjects, are recorded in early sources. In 1574, a painting by Bosch showing ‘the Descent of Christ our Lord to Limbo’ was given by Philip II of Spain to the Escorial outside Madrid, with a further painting by the artist of ‘Christ after the Resurrection in Limbo, with many figures’ owned by the king upon his death. Another depiction of the same subject was listed in the 1595 inventory of Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553-1595) at Brussels, and a final one recorded by Karel van Mander in his famous Het Schilder-boeck (1604), which described a ‘Hell […] in which patriarchs are released’ (see L. Campbell, The Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen: The Early Flemish Pictures, Cambridge, 1985, p. 11, under no. 7).
It is likely that the present painting was derived from one of these lost works by an artist who was working in Bosch’s orbit within his lifetime. Dendrochronological analysis of the oak panel provides the earliest felling date of 1483, with a possible date of creation from 1485 onwards (report by Dr. Peter Klein, 29 October 2024, available upon request). Infrared reflectography reveals a combination of planned underdrawing and more spontaneously executed elements, with Christ and the figures before him partially underdrawn and the landscape and surrounding staffage rendered with greater freedom (fig. 1; analysis by Tager Stonor Richardson, 26 April 2025, available upon request). The painting's composition, conceived within a unique square format, also suggests that it may have been intended for a specific form of display, attested to by the barb of its painted edges.
Bosch’s diabolic landscapes created an artistic phenomenon so revered in his lifetime and beyond that they gained a life of their own, with his designs disseminated by draughtsmen, painters and printmakers through an intense exchange of models. Artists would reinterpret Boschian themes through motifs derived from drawings, often assembled in sketchbooks and modelbooks, and while most such books are now lost or dismembered, one can imagine that such an invaluable workshop tool may have helped the present artist build a visual repertoire as a means of developing this composition.
Christ’s Descent into Limbo was, like many Christian iconographies that were popularised during the Middle Ages, not based on the Biblical account of his life. As told in de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, following his Crucifixion, Christ descended into Hell in triumph, bringing salvation to the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world. Arriving at the entrance of Hell, he called out in a voice ‘as of thunder… Lift up your gates…and the King of Glory shall come in’ (Gospel of Nicodemus, 16:1). The figure of Christ, dressed in a red mantle and carrying a banner of victory, is shown smashing down the gates of Hell at centre of this work. Surrounding him is a disturbing account of the tumultuous mass of sinners and demons that were to fascinate and horrify Bosch’s contemporaries, retaining even today their enduring force.
The Harrowing of Hell seems first to have appeared in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, written in the mid-fourth century, and was later adapted and disseminated by popular theological texts, like the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine. While no depictions of this subject by Bosch are known today, four apparently different pictures of this, or closely related subjects, are recorded in early sources. In 1574, a painting by Bosch showing ‘the Descent of Christ our Lord to Limbo’ was given by Philip II of Spain to the Escorial outside Madrid, with a further painting by the artist of ‘Christ after the Resurrection in Limbo, with many figures’ owned by the king upon his death. Another depiction of the same subject was listed in the 1595 inventory of Archduke Ernest of Austria (1553-1595) at Brussels, and a final one recorded by Karel van Mander in his famous Het Schilder-boeck (1604), which described a ‘Hell […] in which patriarchs are released’ (see L. Campbell, The Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen: The Early Flemish Pictures, Cambridge, 1985, p. 11, under no. 7).
It is likely that the present painting was derived from one of these lost works by an artist who was working in Bosch’s orbit within his lifetime. Dendrochronological analysis of the oak panel provides the earliest felling date of 1483, with a possible date of creation from 1485 onwards (report by Dr. Peter Klein, 29 October 2024, available upon request). Infrared reflectography reveals a combination of planned underdrawing and more spontaneously executed elements, with Christ and the figures before him partially underdrawn and the landscape and surrounding staffage rendered with greater freedom (fig. 1; analysis by Tager Stonor Richardson, 26 April 2025, available upon request). The painting's composition, conceived within a unique square format, also suggests that it may have been intended for a specific form of display, attested to by the barb of its painted edges.
Bosch’s diabolic landscapes created an artistic phenomenon so revered in his lifetime and beyond that they gained a life of their own, with his designs disseminated by draughtsmen, painters and printmakers through an intense exchange of models. Artists would reinterpret Boschian themes through motifs derived from drawings, often assembled in sketchbooks and modelbooks, and while most such books are now lost or dismembered, one can imagine that such an invaluable workshop tool may have helped the present artist build a visual repertoire as a means of developing this composition.
Christ’s Descent into Limbo was, like many Christian iconographies that were popularised during the Middle Ages, not based on the Biblical account of his life. As told in de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, following his Crucifixion, Christ descended into Hell in triumph, bringing salvation to the righteous who had died since the beginning of the world. Arriving at the entrance of Hell, he called out in a voice ‘as of thunder… Lift up your gates…and the King of Glory shall come in’ (Gospel of Nicodemus, 16:1). The figure of Christ, dressed in a red mantle and carrying a banner of victory, is shown smashing down the gates of Hell at centre of this work. Surrounding him is a disturbing account of the tumultuous mass of sinners and demons that were to fascinate and horrify Bosch’s contemporaries, retaining even today their enduring force.