''The Conjurer'' is a painting by Early Netherlandish painter

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

or his workshop, executed around 1502. There are five versions of this painting and one engraving, but most experts believe the most reliable copy is part of the collection of the Musée Municipal in

Saint-Germain-en-Laye Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris. Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint- ...

, which is kept locked in a safe and loaned out on a limited basis for special exhibitions in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and abroad. On 1 December 1978 the painting was stolen from the museum and returned on 2 February 1979. The painting comes from the bequest of Louis Alexandre Ducastel, a notary in Saint-Germain-en-Laye from 1813, who was also city council member and mayor in August 1835 and (provisionally) in 1839. The collection seems especially to have been formed by his father John Alexander Ducastel, a painter and collector.

Description

Bosch depicts how people are fooled by lack of alertness and insight, creating a "spellbinding tension" that reappears in his later paintings. The conjurer on the right of the image captures his apt and diverse audience with a game of cups and balls. The central character and true focus of the image is the man of rank in the forefront who leans in and is fixed on the pearl in the conjurer's hand while unaware of being relieved of his

money purse A money bag (or money sack) is a bag normally used to hold and transport coins and banknotes, often closed with a drawstring.

. Bosch depicts the conjurer as a common criminal, luring in the prey. Beasts are used in the painting to symbolize human traits that allow for deception and victimization. The

little owl The little owl (''Athene noctua''), also known as the owl of Athena or owl of Minerva, is a bird that inhabits much of the temperate and warmer parts of Europe, the Palearctic east to Korea, and North Africa. It was introduced into Britain at ...

from the basket at the conjurer's waist signifies his intelligence.

Frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" '' Triadobatrachus'' is ...

s jumping out of the mouth of the central character represent the extent to which the victim let go of reason and gave in to bestial impulses. The child engrossed in our victim and the man stealing the money purse seems to exemplify the

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium ...

proverb: "He who lets himself be fooled by conjuring tricks loses his money and becomes the laughing stock of children." Another Flemish proverb, published and widely distributed ca 1480 in Bosch's hometown of

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a city and municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 157,486. It is the capital of the province of North Brabant and its fourth largest by population. The city is south of th ...

about the time of this painting, is: "No one is so much a fool as a willful fool." Bosch had used other proverbs as the basis of his painting, such as "The world is a haystack, and each man plucks from it what he can" for his painting, the Hay Wagon. Baltasar van den Bosch 001

Elina Gertsman's article about this painting explores this painting from the perspectives of Flemish culture, religious figures and the later body of Bosch's work. A much simpler view by Adrian Maben, filmmaker of Bosch's life and work, is: The conjurer reappears in Bosch's '' Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conjurer (Painting) Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch 1502 paintings Paintings in Saint-Germain-en-Laye Dogs in art Stolen works of art

Description

See also

References