The ''Adoration of the Magi'' or ''The Epiphany'' is a

triptych A triptych ( ) is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided into three sections, or three carved panels that are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all m ...

oil painting on wood panel by the

Netherlandish The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Northern France. Both Belgium and the ...

artist

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...

, executed around 1485–1500. It is now in the

Museo del Prado The Museo del Prado ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It houses collections of Art of Europe, European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th ce ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Spain.

History

In about 1494, Peeter Scheyfve (-1507) and Agnes de Gramme (?-about 1497) commissioned this altarpiece. They were wealthy burghers in Antwerp. The painting was in the

El Escorial El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (), or (), is a historical residence of the king of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, up the valley ( road distance) from the town of El Escorial, Madrid, El ...

monastery, and was mentioned in 1605 as an "Epiphany without any extravaganza" by Fra Jose de Siguenza, and its being unlike Bosch's other work there. It has been at the Prado since 1839. The latest dendrochronological investigation (2016) has determined that the panels were produced after 1472 and most probably after 1474.

Description

Shutters

When closed, the triptych shutters showed externally a

grisaille Grisaille ( or ; , from ''gris'' 'grey') means in general any European painting that is painted in grey. History Giotto used grisaille in the lower registers of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua () and Robert Campin, Jan van Ey ...

painting, depicting the ''

Mass of Saint Gregory The Mass of Saint Gregory is a subject in Catholic art which first appears in the late Middle Ages and was still found in the Counter-Reformation. Pope Gregory I (–604) is shown saying Mass just as a vision of Christ as the ''Man of Sorrows'' ...

'' in a single scene: it features

Gregory the Great Pope Gregory I (; ; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great (; ), was the 64th Bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 until his death on 12 March 604. He is known for instituting the first recorded large-scale mission from Rom ...

kneeling at an altar in front of Christ. The latter is surrounded by an arch with flying angels. The two characters in color are a later addition, and are the painting's donors. The frame contains scenes of the Life of Jesus: from the lower left, the '' Prayer in the Garden'', ''The Arrest'', ''Christ in Front of Pilatus'', the ''Flagellation'', the ''Coronation of Thorns'', the ''Via Crucis'' and, finally, the ''Crucifixion''. In the sky around the cross are a flying angel and a devil, with a red halo around his head, who is drawing

Judas Iscariot Judas Iscariot (; ; died AD) was, according to Christianity's four canonical gospels, one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. Judas betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane, in exchange for thirty pieces of sil ...

's soul away. Judas is also visible hanging at the mountain's right edge, while a man is pointing at him. BoschTheEpiphanyTriptychRightPanelDetail1

BoschTheEpiphanyTriptychRightPanelDetail1

Side panels

The left panel depicts St. Peter and one donor, identified as Peeter Scheyfve by the presence of his coat of arms, with the motto "Een voer al" ("One for all"). In the background, a man sits on a basket under a makeshift roofing: he is likely St. Joseph who heats Jesus' diapers (nappies). In the right panel is St. Agnes and the eponymous donor, Agnes de Gramme, also accompanied by her coat of arms. In the background, a bear and a wolf attack some people.

Central panel

The central panel shows the

Adoration of the Magi The Adoration of the Magi or Adoration of the Kings or Visitation of the Wise Men is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having fo ...

, depicted in accordance with traditional Early Netherlandish iconography. A monumental Mary sits outside a precarious hut, with the Child held at her womb.

Melchior Melchior is the name traditionally given to one of the biblical Magi appearing in the Gospel of Matthew. There are many notable people with this name, or close variations. As a first name * Melchior Anderegg (1828–1914), Swiss mountain guide * ...

, the eldest of the Magi, is kneeling at her feet, with his gift before him: a sculpture of gold with the Sacrifice of Isaac, a forecast of Jesus' Passion. Below the object are several toads, symbols of heresy. Melchior's crown lies on the ground, an allusion to the powerlessness of earthly power against the celestial. Jheronimus Bosch 113

Caspar Caspar is a masculine given name. It may refer to: People * Caspar (magus), a name traditionally given to one of the Three Magi in the Bible who brought the baby Jesus gifts *Caspar Austa (born 1982), Estonian cyclist *Caspar Badrutt (1848–1904) ...

stands to the rear, with a depiction of the Visit of Queen Sheba to Solomon on his mantle. He brings frankincense on a vessel. Finally, the last of the Magi, the dark-skinned

Balthazar Balthazar, Balthasar, Baltasar, or Baltazar may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Balthazar (novel), ''Balthazar'' (novel), by Lawrence Durrell, 1958 * ''Balthasar'', an 1889 book by Anatole France * ''Professor Balthazar'', a Croatian a ...

, has white garments decorated by an embroidery resembling thorny leaves: brings a spherical pix whose reliefs depict the Offer of Water to King David, and which contains

myrrh Myrrh (; from an unidentified ancient Semitic language, see '' § Etymology'') is a gum-resin extracted from a few small, thorny tree species of the '' Commiphora'' genus, belonging to the Burseraceae family. Myrrh resin has been used ...

. Balthasar is accompanied by a dark-skinned servant. An unusual element is represented by the partially naked figure at the hut's entrance, surrounded by other grotesque ones and characterized by a red mantle, a

tiara A tiara (, ) is a head ornament adorned with jewels. Its origins date back to ancient Greco-Roman world. In the late 18th century, the tiara came into fashion in Europe as a prestigious piece of jewelry to be worn by women at formal occasions ...

with metallic twigs in the hand, and by a wheal at the left ankle, protected by a glass structure. This has been variously interpreted as either another prefiguration of the Passion, or as a symbol of the heresy looming the followers, or as the Judaic messiah which, after having been struck by leper, has become the

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...

. Other figures include the shepherds crawling the hut, a traditional element in Italian contemporary Adorations of the Magi; the armies running in the far background and the quasi-anthropomorphic constructions.

Painting materials

The

pigments A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

employed by the artist are consistent with his other works. He painted the triptych with

ochres Ochre ( ; , ), iron ochre, or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the col ...

lead-tin-yellow Lead-tin yellow is a yellow pigment, of historical importance in oil painting, sometimes called the "Yellow of the Old Masters" because of the frequency with which it was used by those famous painters. Nomenclature The name lead-tin yellow is ...

vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color family and pigment most often used between antiquity and the 19th century from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide). It is synonymous with red orange, which often takes a moder ...

carmine Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the Cochineal, cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson Lake pigment, lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium coordination complex, compl ...

and

azurite Azurite or '' Azure spar'Krivovichev V. G.'' Mineralogical glossary. Scientific editor A. G. Bulakh. — St.Petersburg: St.Petersburg Univ. Publ. House. 2009. — 556 p. — ISBN 978-5-288-04863-0. ''(in Russian)'' is a soft, deep-blue copp ...

. The sole rather unusual pigment is natural

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. Its lengthy grinding and washing process makes the natural pigment quite valuable—roughly ten times more expensive than the stone it comes fr ...

used in small quantities in Virgin's robe.Hieronymus Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid)
ColourLex

References

Sources

* *Fra Jose de Siguenza, History of the Order of ST. Jerome, 1605(Extract translation) in Bosch in Perspective, edited by James Snyder, 1973, USA *Marianne Renson, Genealogical Information Concerning The Bronchorst Boschuysen triptych, 2001, Rotterdam *Xavier, Duquenne, ≪ La famille Scheyfve et Jerome Bosch ≫, L’intermediaire des genealogistes, janvier-fevrier 2004, p. 1-19 *Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij, ''Hieronymus Bosch: Painter and Draughtsman'' – Catalogue raisonné, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2016, pp 198–215.

External links

Page at the museum's official website

Hieronymus Bosch, ''The Adoration of the Magi'' (Madrid)
ColourLex {{DEFAULTSORT:Adoration of the Magi (Bosch, Madrid) Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch 1480s paintings 1490s paintings Bosch Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch in the Museo del Prado