The Garden of Paradise
Hieronymus Bosch·c. 1500–c. 1520
Historical Context
This Garden of Paradise from the workshop of Hieronymus Bosch was painted around 1500-1520, reflecting the enormous demand for works in Bosch's unique and fantastical style. Bosch's extraordinary visions of paradise, hell, and earthly temptation inspired a school of imitators that continued to produce works in his manner well after his death in 1516. The Garden of Paradise subject combines the beauty of an earthly paradise with the moral warnings about sin that characterize Bosch's art.
Technical Analysis
The oil on panel reproduces the characteristic Boschian idiom of fantastical imagery within a detailed landscape setting. The bright, jewel-like colors and the accumulation of bizarre details maintain the hallucinatory quality of Bosch's originals, though the execution may lack the master's finest touch.
Provenance
Max Bondi sale, Galleria Lurati, Milan, December 9–20, 1929, no. 59. K. Postma, Carlton Hotel, Amsterdam, by January 1936 [according to a photograph in the Friedländer Archive, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]; sold to Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, January 1936 [according to letter and stockcard kindly supplied by Hilde de Boer, November 15, 2000]; sold to J. B. Neumann Gallery, New York, December 1936 [according to De Boer stockcard cited above]; sold to the Art Institute, December 1936.
