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Caseiokey
@caseiokey.bsky.social
For your questions on riddles of #HieronymusBosch #latemedieval
#earlyrenaissance #art #symbolism .

Images can be enhanced for visibility.
(Generally no content warning for 500+ years old works of art.)
Since Pride is greatest of capital sins, then Humility is the greatest virtue.

Painter Hieronymus Bosch seems to have painted himself as a rather poor, laughable, wounded figure. He cannot move his legs, he has turned partly into dry wood.
His egg shell torso holds a Bad Inn, w.lowly bagpipes music
January 8, 2026 at 9:26 PM
Although Hieronymus Bosch restrained himself, Love Garden can be seen as a Cockaigne of "sinful life”.
Its likely donor Engelbrecht is known to have led a more than debauched life. In the <Golden Fleece> he was blamed 3X for his dissolute lifestyle.

He was one of the first to die of syphilis…
January 7, 2026 at 2:33 PM
WHY DOES HE CARRY A LADDER?
Presumably the "bird" (=guy) secretly goes to the Bad Inn brothel.
After:
“He comes like a thief in the night."
Biblical expression 1 Thessalonians 5:2; also 2 Peter 3:10.

(Part of the Anthony work -Hieronymus Bosch ~1500AD
At the MNAA museum, Lisbon)
January 4, 2026 at 11:01 AM
Typical AMBIGUOUS SCENE by late medieval/early Renaissance Hieronymus Bosch:
a peaceful farm where people don’t notice what’s going on at the Anthony chapel-
Except possibly a man who was collecting acorns on an Oak tree, when he saw the fire 🔥 and climbed up higher to see better what is happening.
December 30, 2025 at 12:32 PM
RED FRUIT
Dr. De Bruyn: In Bosch art, hollow fruit skins never mean much good.
According to Bax it’s Mandrake.
I added a copy from Brussels beneath the Lisbon original, and a part of John Baptist from Museo Lázaro Galdiano.

Mandragora was used as anaestetic, and linked to fertility.
/+ALT FOR MORE
December 29, 2025 at 3:37 PM
@lauriestrings.bsky.social
Best wishes for a very good year!
December 26, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Caseiokey
@rijksmuseum.bsky.social wat is dat nou 😳
Waarom ontbreken de schilderijen (#devotieprenten) aan de muur in het poppenhuis van Petronella Dunois uit ca. 1675 op de tentoonstelling “Thuis in de 17de eeuw”???
December 23, 2025 at 12:53 AM
SAINT HIERONYMUS (JEROME)
was painter Bosch’s name-giver.
*At LEFT as painted by Hieronymus Bosch himself.
At the MSK Ghent.
*At RIGHT as part of a triptych by the Bosch Studio.
At the MSK Ghent/Groeningemuseum.

Notice the similar somewhat hidden animal skulls.
~1500AD.
December 16, 2025 at 11:39 AM
The INFERNAL LANDSCAPE drawing by Hieronymus Bosch was only recently authenticated as an autograph Bosch work in 2014, by the BRCP.
A juggernaut monster swallows souls drawn in with a net by the wheel in its trap. With boschian elements s.a. human clappers, feet in jugs, huge knife, giant lamp.
December 15, 2025 at 2:07 PM
The 4 giants of Bosch/Studio’s Last Judgment/Wien are underexposed.
Fischer [edited -C]
*a green one spits fire
*a point-hatted, potbellied’s dots may allude to disease
*one w. a blue sheet [helmet] is pierced
*at left a black-faced one devours [reptiles!].
In any case it's mostly about eating.
December 6, 2025 at 12:04 PM
WHY WAS BOSCH’S GARDEN WORK MADE?
Ideas:
*For a church
*For a wedding
*As moral mirror for princes.
All true:
*It has a religious triptych’s form-
but wouldn’t be appropriate
*it fits in with Henry III’s 1503 wedding
*puzzling & daring details give it away as
CONVERSATION PIECE.
December 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM
PARALLELS IN ART:
*A swine hunted, in Les très riches heures du Duc de Berry/ December month. By the Limburg bros. ~1410-15.
At Musée Condé, Chantilly France.

*A sinner hunted, on the Afterlife (“Hell”) panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden triptych, ~1500AD.
At the Prado museum, Madrid.
December 2, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Dr.L.Scholten (2024) discusses the work shop(s) of the Van Akens including Bosch.
A strong argument for B having an own studio is that Markt 61 of Bosch’s wife is much larger than the family house/shop Markt 29: it has almost 6x more space!

Even without proof, it could easily harbor Bosch’s studio!
November 26, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Ancient Netherlandish expression:
“Owls breed Owls” 1561-1656.
A.o. in Cats 1618-32.

This would hint likely at Stupidity, although Evil is mostly behind sins.

(Details from the Garden triptych by Hieronymus Bosch.)
November 23, 2025 at 7:05 PM
In search for scenes fit for Purgatory/Hell on the
Last Judgement/Wien of ~1500, Bosch Studio may have encountered a 1496 woodcut by Dürer.

Compare how in the background prisoners are being thrown down against rocks and THORNY BUSHES.
Dürer painted an other version in 1508.
November 22, 2025 at 1:53 PM
VERONICA’S LEGEND
started ~13c:
During His carrying of the cross, Veronica gave Christ a sweat cloth. The depiction of His face impression became popular.
Hieronymus Bosch & Studio painted it several times. Bosch Followers used it too.

“Veronica” is explained as <vera icon> = the real depiction.
November 21, 2025 at 12:47 PM
WILD MAN & WOMAN
initially represent everything uncivilized (-).
From end 14c a new image of these hairy creatures emerges:
*Their purity & ignorance are idealized.
*They don't know God, so they cannot sin.
(After: Body Language-Museum Catharijneconvent.)

Bosch painted 1 or 2,
here on Garden work.
November 18, 2025 at 3:28 PM
WHAT ABOUT THE SINGING FIGURE
on Bosch’s Anthony work?
*It always makes me think that it’s caught in a Duck trap.
At bottom some traps & baskets in trad. designs in Brabant’s wet Biesbosch region.

*A wilder idea I had, is that it hints at a famous contemporary Utrecht female hermit/songwriter.
November 16, 2025 at 9:32 PM
BOSCH’S VISIONS OF THE HEREAFTER~1500
are 4 panels of a further lost polyptych, likely a Last Judgment.
The heavenly assumption of redeemed is linked to literature about cleansing spheres of souls.
Here part of the panel + the tunnel center underpainting.

Imo it shows also a Near Death Experience
November 11, 2025 at 11:49 AM
TREE-MEN & OTHERS WITH BRANCHES
can be found several times in Hieronymus Bosch’ oeuvre of ca.1500AD.

*They are all demonic
*16c Rhetoricians called sinners “barren trees” and
“withered branches”
*it has a link to biblical passages like Luke 23:31 etc.
November 10, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Caseiokey
if not Ponzi, why Ponzi-shaped?

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
November 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
A MOON CRESCENT
is present on a majority of Bosch’s works, generally with negative meaning:
*it stands for Middle East (originated fm. army flags)
*anti-christian/heathen
*even linking to the Devil/Evil.

Except on St.John on Patmos
*where St.Mary is seated on it
*it’s symbol for the Church.
October 27, 2025 at 9:55 AM
My collage of ca.24 Arma Christi (=Passion elements). Like
*a lantern of the arrest in the dark
*30 coins that Judas got for his betrayal.
An other often seen Arma
*3 dice of soldiers’ gamble.

From the manuscript made by the Netherlandish scribe
Theodericus Werken >1450.
At the @britishlibrary .
October 24, 2025 at 6:11 PM
A contemporary of Hieronymus Bosch was Leonardo da Vinci.

Da Vinci's Last Supper features one knife, belonging to Peter.
Imo this could refer to John 18:10-11, where Peter -later!- cut off Malchus' right ear with his sword during Jesus' arrest.

Now compare Bosch's Ears-War Machine-
Peter’s knife?!
October 18, 2025 at 12:49 PM