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The meaning of owls in "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and other paintings
by Hieronymus Bosch -preliminary essay

Preprint · October 2021

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20361.98403

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The meaning of owls in “The Garden of Earthly Delights” and other paintings by
Hieronymus Bosch – preliminary essay
by Julio Wilson Fernandes, MD, MA
jwfmdma@gmail.com

The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch depicted owls in at least 47% of his paintings
and 33% of his drawings.1 However, very few studies and speeches have examined this
symbol, which is usually associated with night, death, wisdom, and evil, in addition to its
occurrence as a possible autographic symbol or simply a decoration. This study addresses the
significance of owls by analyzing the known accepted context of each autograph painting,
enriched by biblical citations as reliable sources from Hieronymus Bosch’s time about his
motivations. A new interpretation of The Garden of Earthly Delights emerged with a possible
meaning of the pink owl in the left inner panel, as well as an attractive hypothesis about the
central panel concerning its location, motif, and the absence of children and elderly people.
The author argues that owls have a single, unique, and constant meaning throughout
Hieronymus Bosch’s oeuvre.

A FEW REMARKS ON OWL SYMBOLOGY

The owl has an ancestral historical context of death, as seen in China in many
terracotta, jade, bronze, and marble pieces unearthed from tombs dating back to about 5500
BCE to 2000 CE.2 In Egypt, mummified owls and bats have been found in tombs, and the
owl is mentioned as a parody in the Book of the Dead, dating back to around 1580 BCE, as
well as a death-related hieroglyph reported by Horapollo.3 Later reports from Greece mention
owls chiefly being tied to wisdom, probably inferred from their night vision, the ability to
rotate their head 270 degrees, and their keen hunting ability. These attributes became
eternalized by the goddess Athena’s owl companion, seen in many wall inscriptions, flasks,
and coins, or as a symbol of the city of Athens, which is populated by many small owls.
Homer, in The Iliad (700 BCE), masterfully recounts how the skillful god Hypnos disguised
himself as a Scops owl to approach Zeus, inducing him to sleep after Hera’s plot, and
affording the Achaeans victory over the Trojans.4 Further, a wise owl advises birds to destroy
the mistletoe before it spreads its deadly birdlime in an orally transmitted fable by Aesop
(620–564 BCE), which is a literary climax of the wisdom of the iconic owl in Greek
civilization. The Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder considered the owl to symbolize
funerals, and the owl was seen as an ominous sign of death in Rome.5 A metaphorical,

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victorious owl is mentioned in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, and is depicted in a Roman
mosaic from 300 CE found in Tunisia.6 Turning to the Bible, owls are mentioned as signs of
desolation in Isaiah’s prophecy on Babylon’s destruction,7 and likewise in the massacre of
Edom’s land; the owl is sometimes translated as a “raven.”8
During the Middle Ages, owls were associated with plagues, witches, misfortune, sin,
punishment, laziness, and stupidity. The Physiologus, a popular anonymous bestiary from
Greece (2nd–4th century CE), quotes David in Psalm 101: “I have become like an owl in the
house,” associating owls avoiding light with the Jews rejecting Christ as their savior.9
Anthropomorphic owls resembling Jews are often mentioned in bestiaries from 13th-century
England; the owl also appears as a symbol of Christ in the Aberdeen Bestiary (dating back to
around 1200 CE), evoking Christ’s wish to be born Jewish.10 Despite the unknown verdict
about the virtues and iniquities of the owl and the nightingale in the poem The Owl and the
Nightingale (12th–13th century), another poem, The Peacock and the Owl, reinforces the
negative qualities that medieval society associated with the iconic bird of the night.11

MANY THEORIES IN LIGHT OF FACTS ABOUT THE LIFE OF HIERONYMUS

BOSCH
Research about the owl’s meaning in Hieronymus Bosch’s oeuvre requires examining
the potential reasons he may have had for constantly depicting such an intriguing bird in his
work, as follows.
The historian Walter Samuel Gibson (1897–1985) conceived of three different periods
in the interpretation of Bosch’s oeuvre. Following comments on Bosch’s—who was also
called a “maker of devils”—moralist and satirical works from the 16th to the 18th centuries,
Bosch was seen as a fully religious artist in the 19th century. Afterward, in the 20th century, a
third phase arose when monographs emphasized medieval Christian theology before World
War II, and after that focused more on “decoding” Bosch, especially through the theories of
Freud and Jung.12
The historian Charles de Tolnay (1899–1981) made interesting contributions to
studies of Bosch’s iconography. The very peculiar gifts offered to Jesus in The Adoration of
the Magi (the Prado version) drew his attention, as did the iconography of swans in Marriage
at Cana which by the time was still considered an authentic Bosch. Importantly, he foresaw
The Last Judgement (the Bruges version) as an autograph of Bosch in 1927; in 1937, he
deemed The Temptation of Saint Anthony ( São Paulo version and The Barnes Foundation
version in the USA) to also be an autograph of Bosch.13

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 The Dutch historian Dirk Bax (1906–1976) published over 40 years of lexicological
explanations about details in Bosch’s works after his memorable encounter with The
Temptation of St Anthony (the Lisbon version) during an exhibit on Bosch in Rotterdam in
1936, when he noticed the resemblance between a Middle Dutch poem and a gray boat in the
central panel’s right foreground. He disagreed with the historian Wilhelm Fraenger (1890–
1964), and viewed the central panel in The Garden of Earthly Delights as an image of
reprehensible carnal lust.14 Bax made massive contributions to medieval symbology; a few
ones are: the swan as immorality; the tit above the peddler’s head as drunkenness in The
Wayfarer; the crescent in The Hermit Saints triptych as a threat from the Ottoman Empire to
the Christian West; the blue-cloaked demon in The Temptation of St Anthony as a debauched
antithesis to the Virgin Mary; the scorpion as a symbol of hypocrisy and treachery; and the
inverted funnel hat in The Cure of Folly and The Temptation of Saint Anthony denoting
wastefulness, unscrupulousness, and unreliability.15 A lexicological source may be a genuine
connection between the artist and the context in which he lived, but the full extension of such
sources across the artist’s oeuvre is impossible to assess. Regarding the owl’s meaning in
Bosch’s works, there is no unanimous conclusion, as it has been seen either through a
negative or positive lens as a sign of night, evil, sin, wisdom, and prophecy.16
In 1947, Fraenger regarded Bosch as an Adamite, a member of the Community of the
Free Spirit,17 a heretical Christian sect where open sexuality was encouraged as a way to
return to the primitive, naive, pure innocence of Adam and Eve, humankind’s first parents in
the Garden of Eden. Fraenger argued that the central panel in The Garden of Earthly Delights
represents a positive attitude toward sex. In his assertions, Fraenger mentioned Jacob van
Almaengien, an Italian Jew who had been baptized in Hertogenbosch in 1494 and joined the
Brotherhood of Our Lady for about 10 years (before returning to his Jewish faith) as the
sect’s grand master, as well as Bosch’s artistic and religious mentor.18
In 2002, Lynda Harris published a theory that Bosch outwardly practiced Catholicism,
but lived a secret heretical life as a Cathar;19 that is, as a member of the Christian movement
called Catharism, according to which there are two deities: “the good one,” depicted in the
New Testament, and the bad and corrupt one, Jehovah, from the Old Testament. They viewed
the physical world as a satanic trap, and believed that only through the consolamentum, a
ritual performed at the time of death, would the soul be free of successive reincarnations. The
Cathars, mainly concentrated in Albi, southern France, were mercilessly exterminated by the
Albigensian Crusade in 1209 by order of Pope Innocent III. Harris claimed that the creator
figure, unexpectedly portrayed among dark clouds in the closed tryptic The Garden of

3
Earthly Delights, would be Jehovah; that is, Lucifer deceptively waiting to overcome an
Earth still being created. There is no evidence that the Cathars remained active as late as the
16th century in Europe, or that Bosch had any link with this sect.
Both of these theories do not survive a meticulous investigation of the milieu in which
Hieronymus Bosch lived; there are many unquestionable facts about his private and
professional life: The Hertogenbosch Cathedral,20 the former church of St. John the
Evangelist, has served as a testimony to the religiosity of Bosch’s city and its people since the
13th century. By the time of Hieronymus Bosch, the church housed the Brotherhood of Our
Blessed Lady chapel and eight other religious bodies of different devotions in a city with
other institutions as well.21 In the 15th century, a movement for religious reform called
Devotio Moderna (Modern Devotion), associated with the Brethren of the Common Life (a
reformist movement based on the desert fathers and the Dominican brotherhood), had two
congregations in the municipality of ‘s Hertogenbosch (also called Den Bosch) (1424 and
1480), and struggled against heretical sects and clerical corruption.22 It is well-established
that the intense religious life and demands of sacred art in ‘s Hertogenbosch persisted
throughout Hieronymus Bosch’s life.23 The Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady, whose
members were popularly known as the Brothers of the Swan, was founded in 1380. At first it
was only for clergy; much later, in 1642, it expanded and was modified to bring Catholics
and Protestants together around shared religious and social interests.24 Bosch’s grandparents,
Jan and Katharina van Aken, were probably ordinary members of the Brotherhood, as the
family worked regularly with the fraternity. There were up to several thousand external
members, and about 60 of the inner circle called “sworn members” who were mostly priests,
but when sworn membership was extended to highly regarded artists from Den Bosch, Bosch
was admitted as a newly sworn member in 1488.25 Other spiritual institutions of the town,
such as the Brethren of the Common Life, kept in frequent contact with the Brotherhood of
Our Lady and its members.26
Jeroen van Aken lived from about 1450 to 1516 in Den Bosch and adopted the
moniker Jheronimus Bosch,27 probably to promote his business to his many customers. After
1462, Hieronymus lived with his family in a house in Den Bosch’s town square near St.
John’s Church. Hieronymus and two of his brothers became painters, probably due to their
family being historically involved in the profession. He was presumably trained as a painter
by his father Anthonius and his uncles, although local documents about the painters’ guild
and its rules that might be able to confirm such details have been lost. In 1480, he married
Aleid van de Meervenne and lived in another house, also in the town square near the market.

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He was prosperous and well-established as a local artist, being in the top 10% of wealthy
householders, probably due to Aleid’s inheritance from her grandfather and other relatives.28
Hieronymus and Aleid had no children, and he died in 1516 of an infectious disease, while
Aleid died six years later. His funeral, which took place at a solemn requiem mass at St.
John’s Church, was organized and paid for by the Brotherhood, as was usual for sworn
members. Despite extant documents about his funeral, his tomb has never been located.
Bosch received commissions from the Catholic Church, the Burgundian–Habsburg
court, and the wealthy, productive middle class.29 Bosch practiced Catholic traditions
intensely throughout his life, if we consider all the compromises a sworn “swan member” had
to make, including the tonsure, the services in honor of the Virgin every Tuesday evening, the
masses on Wednesday mornings, parades, festive dinners eight or nine times a year, a large
annual swan feast, prayers for the deceased, and charity events.30 It is very hard to imagine
that Hieronymus Bosch, a busy renowned artist living in a prosperous, religious town with
fewer than 14,000 inhabitants, could have had any secret parallel and unnoticed life, as
suggested by the aforementioned theories, rather than his devoted and well-respected very
public status as a consecrated Catholic artist in tiny Den Bosch in the Middle Ages.
Moreover, the endorsement Bosch received from many important people in his artistic
endeavors reinforces his identity as an ardent cleric. In 1496, Diego de Guevara, an external
member of the Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady, became an influential courtier, adviser to
Joanna of Castile and Archduke Philip of Habsburg, an art collector, and treasurer to
Margaret of Austria, Queen of Bohemia; de Guevara served as an important contact between
Bosch and the Catholic Habsburgs.31 Even after Bosch’s death, his body of work still had
meaningful support from clergy, such as the monk Jose de Siguenza, a Spanish historian and
theologian who lived from 1544 to 1606, and was counselor to King Philip II of Spain.32
Professor Paul Vandenbroeck recently argued that Bosch had no sympathy for the
Free Spirit sect, whose social theories were frankly opposed to the values by which the artist
lived and stood for.33 Moreover, he viewed the central panel of The Garden of Earthly
Delights as a consistent allegory of the “Venusberg,” a wished-for fantasy land of unlimited
phallocentric sex and pleasure until the Last Judgment. His new interpretation of the central
panel, which maintains the religious warning against reprehensible behavior, is aligned with
the early works of the historian Max Friedländer (1867–1958).
Other theories try to relate Bosch’s production to mental illness. Nils Büttner made
many attempts to relate Hieronymus Bosch’s devilish, sexual iconography with his emotional
and inner life.34 The talented, outstanding, and unique capacity to make astonishing images of

5
Hell and its inhabitants and to depict overtly sexualized images, was always bothersome to
Christian dogma and the social conventions of the time. However, given the richness of the
unconscious, together with Boch’s geniality and the many visual sources he employed, the
depicted fantasies can be detached from psychopathology. Jos Koldeweij claimed that Bosch
used different sources like sketches, drawings, and prints as constant inspiration for his
extremely detailed paintings.35 As for the inspiration and origins of Bosch’s authentic
monsters and devils, we can find common traces in the Vision of Tundale, printed in 1487 in
Den Bosch, or another Irish version in 1482,36 as well as in medieval bestiaries, biblical
scenes, the alchemy flasks used in chemistry in Bosch’s time,37 and probably many Latin
texts if we recall that Bosch studied at the prestigious Latin School of Den Bosch.38
Moreover, the intelligentsia in the Middle Ages in Den Bosch were used to gathering at the
Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady.39 Another critical source feeding Bosch’s creations was
his contact with pilgrims, at least one of whom was his neighbor in the town square.40
To label Bosch or anyone else as neurotic—or even psychotic—based only on his
artistic output is at the very least naive and misleading. Medically speaking, mental health is
defined much more as one’s ability to cope with reality and everyday life than with any
fantasy an artist might produce in his/her gifted realm. Fantasy is a normal, omnipresent
manifestation of one’s mental life; it is remarkable that countless artists with a prolific,
outstanding imagination have been able to translate or shape their fantasies into art and/or
objects of beauty, and to simultaneously make a living from their work and live ordinary lives
as Hieronymus Bosch undeniably did.
Whether Bosch “saw” his creations, portrayed original creations from his
unconscious, or elaborated upon the abovementioned sources, nobody can know for certain,
but fantasies will always be a fertile field to foster many theories.41

THE OWLS IN THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS AND OTHER PAINTINGS BY

HIERONYMUS BOSCH

The author’s selected research field comprised the 21 paintings that are chiefly
considered autographs by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP).42 All works
currently attributed to Hieronymus Bosch alone, or with his workshop in Den Bosch, are
considered to be autographs.43 Since workshop drawings could have been preparations for
paintings, or even media in which to preserve painted motifs, they were not addressed in this
preliminary essay.44 The varying participation of his workshop in each of his paintings is still

6
an open and intriguing subject examined in another study by the author of the present work.45
The possible role of owls as Hieronymus Bosch’s unique artistic mark will be discussed
before considering the owls in each of his autograph paintings in an iconographic analysis.

Owls as Hieronymus Bosch’s unique artistic mark

Professor Matthijs Ilsink took a linguistic viewpoint regarding Bosch and his
ubiquitous depictions of owls in paintings and drawings. In the old Dutch language, the word
boschvoghele refers to the owl as a “bird of the wood.” Since “wood” in Dutch is bosch, the
owl would be the “bosch bird,” which could easily be associated with the artist’s moniker,
making the owl “the Hieronymus Bosch bird.”46 This discovery is consistent with linguistics
and psychoanalysis. However, it is not possible to determine whether such alleged
identification could have occurred before or after his celebration as a prominent painter of
owls.
Notably, Bosch and his contemporaries in the Netherlands around the 15th century
were not in the habit of signing their works. In the 21 paintings considered to be
autographically Bosch’s, only 8 have his toponym, albeit in Gothic letters, a font type used in
printing in that period, without a date. They were reproduced very easily; they were not
exclusive, unique, or hard to imitate, like Van Eyck’s, as pointed out by Ilsink.47
Given the BRCP dating of the paintings from 1470 to 1516,12 autograph paintings
depict owls: (1) The Adoration of the Magi (New York), (2) Ecce Homo (Frankfurt), (3) Saint
Jerome at Prayer (Ghent), (4) The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid), (5) The Garden of
Earthly Delights triptych, (6) the Saint Wilgefortis triptych (also known as The Crucifixion of
Saint Julia), (7) The Hermit Saints triptych, (8) The Last Judgment (Bruges), (9) The Last
Judgment (Vienna), (10) The Wayfarer triptych, (11) The Temptation of Saint Anthony
(Lisbon), and (12) The Haywain triptych. Interestingly, almost in the same period (1500–
1515), Bosch produced nine other works without owls in his workshop: (1) Saint Anthony
(fragments) (Kansas City), (2) Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, (3) Saint John the
Evangelist on Patmos/Scenes from the Passion of Christ, (4) Saint Christopher Carrying the
Christ Child, (5) Christ Carrying the Cross/Christ Child (Vienna), (6) Christ Carrying the
Cross (El Escorial), (7) Christ Crowned with Thorns (London), (8) Crucifixion with a Donor,
and (9) Visions of the Hereafter. Such a lack of pattern in the same time span (roughly 50%
with owls and 50% without them) in a likely organized workshop with many commissions to
complete makes it very difficult to infer that owls would have only been a single “stamp-like”
mark of the painter and his atelier in Den Bosch from 1470 to 1516. Another possibility to be

7
considered given the same data would be the random choice of owls as a purely decorative
motif. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out, as the owls’ esthetic and cultural value in the
Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries is difficult to assess accurately. Keeping this
conjecture in mind, even with all the possible side contributions from the literature, a
decorative icon would still carry the owl’s unconscious, associated significance.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

This triptych is extremely emblematic in that it has six owls (two in the inner left
panel, three in the central panel, and a stylized one in the inner right panel), and there are
many invaluable biblical references to the owls’ meaning. The outer panels in this triptych
show the biblical story of creation from Genesis, at the end of the third day, when God
separated the land from water and vegetation grew on Earth. Bosch may have been inspired
by the Nuremberg Chronicle leaf by Hartmann Schedel (1440–1514), first published on 23
December 1493, where creation is depicted from the first to the seventh day.48 The portrayal
of God’s hand, probably blessing an action, was replaced by an ancient, mysterious figure in
the dark at the top left of the closed triptych, next to the following words from Psalm 32: “For
he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”
Concerning the inner panels, in 1947, Fraenger published Das Tausendjährige Reich,
a book on The Garden of Earthly Delights in which he offered a revolutionary view of the
painting; he depicts Bosch in a different light from the hitherto popular perspective of him as
a “maker of devils.” Fraenger asserted that Adam and Eve’s children were born after their
parents’ expulsion from Eden, and that by expiation they could return to Eden’s blessed life,
and not to hell as in The Haywain.49 Departing from these ideas, Fraenger regarded Bosch as
an Adamite, a member of the Community of the Free Spirit. The central panel in The Garden
of Earthly Delights represents a positive attitude toward sex. Like Fraenger and other authors,
González et al. published a similar interpretation regarding the absence of sin or guilt in the
central panel. He argued that the iconography of owls can be fully understood if we consider
two wordplays around the painter’s moniker and the name of Bosch’s hometown in French
(Bois-le-Duc); González et al. concluded that the owls in Bosch’s work are not ominous, but
rather symbols of Christ.50 Another doubtful line of thought about the central panel is the
prelapsarian or “as if” theory: It depicts the ideal world of immortality, delightful fruits, and
sexual freedom that humans could have had if Adam and Eve had not fallen. This theory
encompasses many incongruences. The alleged background of pictorial continuity between
the central and left panel, spotting the collective nude inside the Garden of Eden, is worthless

8
once it has been seen in other works by Bosch.51 If this hypothesis explains the absence of the
elderly in the central panel, it does not justify the missing children. Moreover, it denies the
expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Earthly Delights.52 Vandenbroeck rejected
the “as if” theory once the wild “Eve” in the cave (presumably living beside their offspring)
is no longer considered a woman; indeed “she” has a flat chest, with a slightly prominent
nipple, and a breast-like, superimposed decorative item is above where her breast would
expected to be. Further, despite most men having short hair in the scene, there are others with
long hair in the panel. Given the same melancholic pose observed in the cave, a woman is
displayed along the border of the central pond, whereas a man in the same stance is the
“innkeeper” in the right wing.
Despite some unavoidable anachronisms in our logical interpretations of Bosch’s
motifs, the biblical contributions are highly valuable, since the Bible was certainly a source of
inspiration for Bosch and was readily available in his time. Regarding the owls’ iconography,
the author considers the fall of the angels to be essential to grasping it. The angels were made
before creation, or more accurately, as part of it, out of the separation of light from darkness,
and the angels’ fall follows that moment.53 When the Earth was created, all of God’s “sons”
(angels, including the ones to fall) shouted for joy, as God laid the foundations of Earth and
set up its measurements (Job 38:7).54 After a war in Heaven, Lucifer and one-third of the
angels (Revelation 12:4) were expelled from Heaven to Earth, as described by St. John the
Apostle.55 In the inner left-wing panel of The Haywain triptych, the chronological disposition
of the biblical scenes makes it clear that the angels’ fall, and the evil it represents, occurred
before Adam and Eve were created. The inner left-wing panel in The Garden of Earthly
Delights depicts the Garden of Eden on the sixth day of creation, when God introduces Eve to
Adam in a scene surrounded by fruit-bearing trees and a pink fountain (presumably the
equivalent of the tree of life), as well as an elephant, a giraffe, a rabbit, a monkey, and other
animals. The greenish areas of the lower and middle ground represent the garden after evil
enters it because of the fallen angels, indicated by the black owl at the base of the pink
fountain, and other ominous, sinister black animals scattered across the water and the green
land. Fischer argued that the owl represents the satanic opposition to redemption, akin to the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the serpent and the fruit.56 The bluish far
background might be the earlier garden, before the fallen angels take over: Almost no black
creatures are seen, and a tiny, unique pink owl is observed at the top of the mountain.Pink is
the holy color of God’s robe and towers, and a pink owl is never seen anywhere else in
Bosch’s works. The pink owl in the background reveals the primal presence of something

9
initially good in God’s innocent, pure realm, which later turns out to be black evil on Earth. Is
evil not the fallen angels’ fullest expression?
Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden is not depicted here, though it is
presented masterfully in the left wings of two other contemporary works of Bosch: The Last
Judgment (the Vienna version; 1500–1505), and later The Haywain (1510–1516). Some
scholars believe that the central panel is related to Genesis 1:27–28 in the left panel, where
men and women have been created at the same time, in the image of God, with no further
warnings about the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.57 The left panel more
likely refers to the particularly detailed passage in Genesis 2:15–24, where Adam and Eve are
clearly alerted about the tree.58 Regardless of the passages from Genesis shown in the left
panel, the fact is that the first couple was indeed expelled from the Garden of Eden, as
extensively recounted in Genesis 3:1–23.59
The central panel portrays the early Earth, but not the Garden of Eden, as many
authors have suggested, once Adam and Eve were cast out and “cherubim and a sword of
flame turned every way, guarding the way to the Tree of Life.”60 The central panel indicates a
location somewhere on the early Earth, like the biblical Havilah or Ethiopia, in the vicinity of
the Garden of Eden, by a river that is divided into four: the Pishon,61 the Gihon,62 the Tigris,
and the Euphrates. In the bluish, green, and pink background, towers and steeples delimit a
dreamlike playground where men and women express a playful, naive interest in each other,
surrounded by numerous birds and other animals. It is possible to find at least five pairing
“couples” out of eight, where some sort of physical closeness is overt, yet not fully sexual.63
No coupling is present in the middle ground, and the activity is clearly group-oriented,
frenetic, and frolicsome, turning into a ritualistic scene: a central pond where only women
bathe, showing off their apples, surrounded by riding men showing off their strawberries and
cherries. The anticlockwise parade may chronologically signal a way back to Adam and
Eve’s past in a sort of pre-sexual ritual. In the Middle Ages, the anticlockwise direction was
also associated with bad luck and evil.64 Extensive sexual symbols like robins, lions,
strawberries, cherries, and grapes embody lechery; riding and plucking roses, as references to
intercourse, are pervasive.65 Professor Eric de Bruyn accurately revealed the inherent
eroticism in the central panel and its Middle Dutch linguistic associations.66 The borderline
between the ritual and the full lust shown in the foreground of the central panel contains a
unicorn, a symbol of chastity, together with an owl perched on its horn. In the foreground, it
is the height of the harvest season; there is an abundance of symbolic fruits and fully intimate
relations between men and women, surrounded by diverse animals of different species.

10
Following the mating ritual of the middle ground, the naive frolicking game in the
background transforms into a foreground full of sexual activity by the apple eaters, where
approximately 14 couples express intimate or sexual closeness, and often try to hide
themselves in a shell, in a bubble, inside giant fruits, in a cave, and many other kinds of
shelter. They conceal themselves in the same way that Adam and Eve hid from God after
having tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, as described in Genesis
3:8, which Bosch masterly depicted in the left inner panel of The Last Judgement (the Vienna
version). This foreground is flanked by two formidable black owls on the right and left,
celebrating the victory of evil over humankind’s inborn sexual innocence. In the central
panel, lust, as a product and craft of fallen angels, progressively takes over innocently born
humans in the same manner that Adam and Eve were “taken over” in the original Garden of
Eden. As an allegory about lust, no children are shown, and the evil, omnipresent in lust-
driven humanity before the Flood,67 is conveyed by the two imposing black owls in the
foreground of the central panel (Fig. 1).
The inner right panel depicts Hell. In the foreground, an owl with a cooking pot on its
head is enthroned on a commode, eating a sinner’s soul, which is digested and excreted into a
bubble into a pond beneath it. Knives, arrows, and other torture devices are scattered around
the devilish scene (Fig. 1). The painting portrays the final, desperate apotheosis of
humankind, lost in lust as result of the fallen angels wishes, as seen in the central panel.

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Fig. 1. Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights (inner panels), 1495–1505, Oil on
oak panels, wings: 187.5 x 76.5 cm, central panel: 190 x 175 cm (Madrid, Museo Nacional
del Prado). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Adoration of the Magi (New York)

The traditional epiphany in this version (1470–1480) presents the usual kings Casper,
Balthasar, and Melchior greeting the Christ Child with their golden gifts decorated with
pearls (Fig. 2). This motif became very popular in the Netherlands by the 15th century and
was regularly celebrated in Den Bosch. Many repetitive conventions of the kings’ position,
crowns, gifts, and Balthasar’s skin color were repeated over the years by different artists.68
As usual, the central motif has the Virgin and a kneeling Joseph beside an ox and a donkey,
with strangers looking at the scene through windows against a shepherd’s bucolic
background. The owl in this painting is almost unnoticed, spying out from a window under
the blue overhang, in the middle ground on the left. As a day scene, the owl in this case
cannot be considered a symbol of the night. It cannot be purely decorative either, especially if
we realize that it is hardly visible and does not contribute to the main composition. Death
cannot be considered significant in this scenario. Wisdom or evil would be the only
possibility to be inferred from the owl’s meaning. Wisdom would be related to the Christ
Child, but if the motif were positive, the owl would likely be more overt and closer to the
newborn and his guests. This sinister, hidden, inconspicuous bird could only be an
unwelcome guest in the central scene symbolizing menace, threats, and evil.

12
Fig. 2. Hieronymus Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi, 1470–1480, Oil on oak panel, 71.1 x
56.7 cm. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Public domain, via Wikimedia
Commons.

Ecce Homo (Frankfurt)

The moment when Pontius Pilate presented Christ to an enraged Roman crowd is
shown in this painting. In Gothic letters, two texts are displayed: “Behold the man” next to
Pontius Pilate, and “Christ Redeemer, save us” next to the monk, who kneels behind the male
donor in the left foreground (Fig. 3).
Despite the torch in the middle ground, this is an early day scene, and the small,
partially hidden owl in the window has no connection with the time of day and makes no
aesthetic contribution to the primary scene. As an overt “pareidolia,” one can also see another

13
owl depicted in blood by Christ’s footprint on the floor. There is no place for the meaning of
wisdom for an owl in this scene. Evil and death seem to be very plausible meanings for the
spotted owl in this case.

Fig. 3. Hieronymus Bosch, Ecce Homo, 1475–1485, Oil on oak panel, 71.4 x 61.0 cm. (Städel
Museum, Frankfurt am Main). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Saint Jerome at Prayer

Saint Jerome was a priest and theologian, educated in the church in Rome before
retiring to the Syrian desert. He is portrayed in meditation, embracing the crucifix near the

14
rock he used for self-chastisement (Fig. 4). This painting was probably based on Jerome’s
letters to a pious woman whom he advised on the matter of chastity that were published in the
Legenda Aurea, a popular manuscript from the Middle Ages about the saints’ lives. In an
ominous and threatening wilderness, an owl perched on a dead tree during the daytime is
relevant to the main scene.Wisdom could be attributed to him as an eminent translator of the
Bible, but the owl seems much more related to the temptation and lust the saint strove to
overcome.

Fig. 4. Hieronymus Bosch, Saint Jerome at Prayer, 1485–1495, Oil on oak panel, 80.0 x 60.7
cm. (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

15
The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid)
The closed triptych represents the donors (the Scheyfve family from Antwerp) at the
Mass of Saint Gregory, when Christ appears at the altar in front of Pope Gregory I with his
wounds as a response to his prayers, asking for a convincing sign about the transubstantiation
of the bread and wine. The opened triptych depicts the donors in the inner wings and the
usual Adoration of the Magi scene in the central panel. The scene is much more colorful,
bright, and elaborated than the New York version. The kings’ gifts are emblematic and
prophetic as adornments depicting the sacrifice of Abraham, an incense holder with a
phoenix-like bird, and myrrh on a silver plate. In the stable doorway, an antichrist stands
dressed as a fourth king. The painting is magnificent, and every face is a masterpiece; even
the donors are lively and full of expression and emotional content. An owl is powerfully
present on the stable roof over the antichrist and has a dead mouse as its prey. Would this be
an ominous analogy of the expected events of Christ’s life? Another owl is partially hidden in
the wall behind the stable on the left side. The owl’s meaning here is analogous to the
homonymous version in New York: The owls are frankly ominous and threatening toward the
newborn Christ (Fig. 5). Ilsink and Koldevey created a detailed description of this painting
(the New York version) and its copies. Many animals have been accurately described as
idealized birds (not pelicans or phoenixes) in Balthasar’s oil vessel containing myrrh; there is
even a toad. However, the aforementioned impressive owls are not emphasized.69

16
Fig. 5. Hieronymus Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi (open triptych), 1490–1500, Oil on
oak panels, left wing: 138 x 29.2 cm, central panel: 138 x 72 cm, right wing: 138 x 33 cm
(Museo del Prado, Madrid). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Saint Wilgefortis triptych

The outer paintings, if they ever existed, are missing. Saint Wilgefortis is sometimes
identified by other names such as Uncumber, Liberata, Librada, Kümmernis, Frasobliwa, or
Débarras, or is conflated with Saint Julia of Corsica. Her origins are uncertain; it is not
known for certain if she was a young Carthaginian noblewoman kidnaped by barbarians and
sold as a slave to Eusebio, a Turkish trader, or was the daughter of a Portuguese pagan who
promised her in marriage to a Muslim king. What is known is her refusal to marry, praying
for help, and for the Lord’s protection to preserve her virginity. Before her wedding day, she
grew a beard overnight, making her unattractive to her fiancé, and thus impairing her
marriage. Her father (or somebody else), angry about her steady faith, ordered her to be
tortured and crucified like Christ. Her fiancé fainted after seeing the torture she suffered. An

17
owl is embroidered in the hosiery worn by that man. Evil is the likely meaning of this owl
(Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Hieronymus Bosch, Saint Wilgefortis triptych (open triptych), 1495–1505, Oil on oak
panel, left wing: 105.2 x 27.5 cm, central panel: 105.2 x 62.7 cm, right wing: 104.7 x 27.9 cm
(Doge’s Palace, Venice). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Hermit Saints triptych

The outer panels of the wings are missing, and the triptych is cropped; the arched top
has been lost. The left wing portrays Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony the Great70 was an
Egyptian monk who lived between 251 CE and 356 CE in Egypt as an ascetic in the desert,
and should not be confused with other saints named Anthony, such as Saint Anthony of
Padua (Saint Anthony of Lisbon), who was a priest who lived from 1195 to 1231 in Portugal
and Italy, and at least five others who died from 1073 to 1870. Saint Anthony lived in the
desert for approximately 20 years. Later, he organized a community of monks, probably
gathering other monks living around the abandoned Roman fort where he lived between the

18
Nile and the Red Sea. His abode would later give rise to a monastery, which still exists and
bears his name. Bosch depicts the saint as peacefully drawing water from a river surrounded
by many demons. The bell, the Tau Cross, and the companion pig are his attributes, and he is
a patron of animals, farmers, and people suffering from skin diseases. Saint Anthony the
Great is venerated not only by the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion but also by
the Orthodox Coptic Church and other Eastern churches (Fig. 7). Many demons haunt Saint
Anthony such as a tempting, naked woman, bizarre ominous animals seen in other works by
Bosch, and anthropomorphic, devilish creatures. The same nun found in The Last Judgment
(Vienna) in the lower left corner of the central panel is seen here: a nun with her body
amputated, leaving only her face with a white veil (headscarf), indicating her novitiate and
subservience, and her feet. In The Hermit Saints triptych, this nun wears sandals, while in The
Last Judgment she is barefoot, and a sword perforates her hat. Another difference is that the
nun carries an owl’s nest on top of her head, where a sinister owl stands.A previous work71
indicates that a hat in Bosch’s paintings may refer to the creature who wears it: Would this
nun have broken her vow of chastity, a consequence of the impure thoughts she “nested” (i.e.,
held) in her head? Was her punishment to be damned to lose her body, the source of her lust?
Despite being dawn in the scene, this owl does not seem to be portrayed as a symbol of night
or even an omen of death, as no one is dead in the scene. If the owl represented wisdom, it
would be standing on Saint Anthony, not on a nun being punished as a sinner. The only
plausible meaning in this painting is that the owl denotes evil.
The central panel presents Saint Jerome: theologian, Latin translator of the Bible,
prolific writer, and later Doctor of the Church. Saint Jerome was born in the Roman province
of Stridon, where he lived before moving to Rome and studied philosophy. He retired for
some time to the desert of Chalcis, living as a hermit, as portrayed by Bosch. Jerome beats
himself with a stone in self-chastisement. A lion from whose paw he once removed a splinter
is his companion. He prays by the ruins, surrounded by pagan icons in his red dress and hat,
which are merely a convention, as there were no cardinals when he was alive. A throne-like
structure became an altar because the saint touched it with his left hand while holding a
crucifix. In addition, a scene of Judith and Holofernes is depicted. Beneath that scene, a man
hiding himself in a basket shows his backside as a perch for an owl, probably as an antithesis
to Judith’s virtuous use of her body. Evil and sin are the only possible meanings for the owl
in this case.
The right panel presents Saint Giles (Saint Aegidius), a Greek hermit from Athens,
who lived approximately between 650 CE and 710 CE. According to legend, he protected a

19
red deer when a local king fired an arrow at the animal; Giles took the arrow himself, saving
the animal, who became his companion in the desert. The man by the window would
presumably be that king, trying to convince Saint Jerome to give up his diet of vegetables and
deer milk. As Saint Anthony, he is surrounded by many black, sinister animals, such as
porcupines, titmouses, and possibly rats, snakes, and lizards. A hard-to-see owl behind Saint
Giles is shown, almost hidden, in his cavern wall. As in previous cases, this furtive owl does
not seem to be related to wisdom, as it appears to be menacing and much more connected to
the demons and temptations the saints tries to overcome.

Fig. 7. Hieronymus Bosch, The Hermit Saints triptych (inner panels), c. 1495–1505, Oil on panel,
left wing: 85.4 x 29.2 cm, central panel: 85.7 x 60 cm, right wing: 85.7 x 28.9 cm (Gallerie Dell’
Accademie, Venice). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Last Judgement (Bruges)

The closed triptych wings depict Christ crowned with thorns, but they were detached
from the central panel before 1845, when they were joined as another arched panel. The
triptych was restored to its original composition by the BRCP from 2014 to 2016. In contrast
to the inner panels, which were very well preserved, the outer panels of the wings were
severely damaged.
The central panel shows the end of days when demons take over the Earth, while
Christ sits above, judging humanity. The left panel represents the gateway that opens to good

20
souls reaching Heaven. The right panel points to Hell, waiting for sinners to arrive (Fig.8).
The central panel on the left has a devilish, cylindrical chamber where naked people, demons,
and ominous animals play together. Music is often associated with lust and sin, and a flute
and a lute at the roof of the chamber endorse this interpretation. A small owl is seen by the
lute’s sound hole, with evil connotations.

Fig. 8. Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgement (inner panels), c. 1495–1505, Oil on panel,
left wing: 99.5 x 28.8 cm, central panel: 99.2 x 60.5 cm, right wing: 99.5 x 28.6 cm
(Groeningemmuseum, Bruges). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Last Judgement (Vienna)

The closed triptych portrays Saint James the Great on the left and Saint Hippolytus on
the right. Saint James the Great, known in Spain as Santiago de Compostela, was a brother of
the Apostle John, and spread the Christian faith throughout Spain for over 40 years, which is
why he was decapitated in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa. He is the patron of pilgrims and
workers.

21
 On the right, the second saint is Saint Hippolytus, a Christian theologian in Rome
from approximately 170 to 235 CE.72 Believed to be an antipope, he was exiled in 235 CE,
died in exile, and was readmitted to the Church post-mortem as a priest. In the grisaille, his
sword and the bird in his hand suggest nobility. The hand in the saddlebag indicates
compassion toward the kneeling leprosy victim, showing his own mummified foot and
deformed beggars on the right.73
The left wing inner panel depicts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden: first, Eve
being baptized, then taking fruit from the serpent, and finally being expelled from Paradise
with Adam. To the left of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a tiny gray owl sits on a
perch on a tree branch; next to the “sin tree,” its relationship with evil and sin is overt. In the
sky, the Creator is looking at the earlier battle of armed angels, defending Heaven from black
souls (Fig. 9).
The central panel represents the final judgment; only Heaven is left on top, whereas
everything else is overcome by darkness, a pessimistic allusion to the state of humanity
punished by plague, wars, and hunger. This is a typical scene of the Middle Ages preceding
Bosch. A few chosen ones go to Heaven, escorted by angels and received by Christ, who is
accompanied by the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Baptist, and the 12 apostles. All sinners on
Earth are tortured by legions of anthropomorphic demons in a series of punishments,
probably related to the nature of their faults. No owls are found in this panel (Fig. 9).
The right-hand side of the panel refers to Hell. Crowned by erupting volcanoes, a
reddish tent contains desperate, naked souls, while a boat and a canoe bring new naked souls
to the delight of the dark demons, who apply all kinds of torture to these souls. Two owls are
seen in the panel depicting Hell: to the right of the entrance below the red tent, and on the
head of a sitting naked soul with a white veil in the middle ground on the right. The former
owl stands by the portal, framed and adorned by many frogs, from which a terrifying demon
runs out. The latter owl, as usual in Bosch’s depicted figures, is attributed with a devilish
character. No wisdom, no death, and no other meaning besides evil can be attributed to these
owls (Fig. 9).

22
Fig. 9. Hieronymus Bosch, The Last Judgement (inner panels), 1495–1505, Oil on oak panel, left
wing: 163 x 160 cm, central panel: 163 x 127 cm, right wing: 163 x 60 cm (Akademie der
bildenden Künste, Vienna). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Wayfarer triptych

This triptych is currently a single tondo; the outer panels of the wings were cropped in
the past to form an octagonal single painting (Fig.10). It depicts a wayfarer, pilgrim, penitent,
or peddler (his exact role is uncertain) in his way through life. A possible brothel stands in the
background, and many animals such as pigs, dogs, cows, and birds (including images of
swans), as well as an enigmatic cat skin hanging from his pack and a pig’s trotter, have been
the source of countless interpretations. An owl perched in a tree behind the man looks at him;
he does not seem to be wise. The central panel is missing. The inner left wing shows The Ship
of Fools, depicting a boat where drinking, lust (often inferred from an inverted jug on a
stick), and music (often related to sex, drinking, and amusement) occur in a frenetic way. The
ship has a mast to which fish and trees are tied. From this tree, a sinister anthropomorphic
owl peeks out.A fragment of this picture would fill the supposed left inner panel, so-called
Gluttony and Lust, clearly indicating the ship’s sexual context. The right inner left wing is
Death and the Miser, portraying a man at the time of death surrounded by demons and an
angel. He must choose between his greed and attachments to material things, or the light
emanating from God and faith in eternal life.

23
Fig. 10. Hieronymus Bosch, The Wayfarer triptych (exterior wings), 1500–1510, Oil on oak
panel, 71.3 x 70.7 cm (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam). Public domain, via
Wikimedia Commons.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (the Lisbon version)

This triptych may have been inspired by The Golden Legend. The German text reads,
“The Lives of the Saints” from 1400, or “The Lives of the Desert Fathers” (Vitas patrum).74
The outer panels of the wings (closed triptych) are two grisailles: The left panel depicts the
arrest of Christ, before dawn, surrounded by his disciples, with Judas in the foreground and a
purse on his back, while the right panel shows Christ carrying the cross and the two thieves to
be crucified interacting with two other men in religious habits. Veronica is close to Christ,
with a veil in her hands.

24
 The left inner panel illustrates Saint Anthony in two different moments: thrown into
space while praying, and being tortured by many demons until he is unconscious, then carried
by two other possible hermits and an unknown third person. An ironic mail carrier—a skating
bird—has a letter in its beak that says protio, an abbreviation of protestatio (protest), which is
enjoyed by the three demons under the bridge (Fig. 11).
The central panel shows Anthony praying, surrounded by numerous demons and
anthropomorphic creatures in a frenetic, diabolic rendezvous; God has sent him a helping
shaft of light. Old Testament scenes are depicted in the ruined tower. A pagan mass goes by
on his right while Saint Anthony preserves his faith, undisturbed by the devilish crowd.
The right inner panel presents Anthony reading, while a seductive woman, a living
demon, tries unsuccessfully to draw his attention.
Two owls are seen in this version’s central panel; they are absent in many other
versions whose authenticity has been questioned.75 The Temptation of Saint Anthony
(fragments in Kansas City) has been recognized by the BRCP as an autograph, although it
does not contain any owls.
A devilish gathering is at Saint Anthony’s left side, where guests drink and are just
about to eat a frog-like animal that holds an egg, served on the tray by a black woman. Two
guests are musicians, one of whom has the head of a pig with an owl perched on top of it.
Music and musicians have been considered closely related to lust, drinking, and sin in many
other works by Bosch, which is why this owl could not have a meaning other than sin and
evil. The other owl, a shabby one, is at the break in the ruined tower where there is also a
depiction of Jews dancing around the Golden Calf while Moses receives the tablets of the
Law (upper), and the Jews sacrifice animals to a simian idol (side). Again, this owl is related
to sin and not to wisdom or any other attribute (Fig. 11).

25
Fig. 11. Hieronymus Bosch, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (inner panels), 1500–1510, Oil
on oak panel, left wing: 144.8 x 66.5 cm, central panel: 145.1 x 132.8 cm, right wing: 144.8 x
66.7 cm (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Haywain triptych

This closed triptych depicts a wayfarer and his journey through life surrounded by
animals, robbers, music, dancing, and nature. The inner left wing displays the events in the
Garden of Eden in four different chronological sets (from top to bottom): (1) the fall of the
rebellious angels, (2) the creation of Eve, (3) Adam and Eve’s original sin, and (4) their being
cast out of Eden (Fig. 12). The central panel depicts unbound human greed, even for
worthless things. A haywain (hay wagon) driven by demonic creatures toward Hell is
portrayed in the right panel; it is a procession where all sorts of people desperately try to get
as much of the hay as possible from the wagon. Standing on top of the haywain, an angel
prays while two couples enjoy lust and music, encouraged by a demonic musician and a
hidden voyeur. An owl perches in the bush to celebrate the evil triumph of lust and greed
over the angel’s prayer and the Lord’s will.

26
Fig. 12. Hieronymus Bosch, The Haywain (inner panels), 1510–1516, Oil on oak panel, left
wing: 136.1 x 47.7 cm, central panel: 133 x 100 cm, right wing: 136.1 x 47.6 cm (Museo
Nacional del Prado, Madrid). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The absent owls in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings

The paintings Saint John the Baptist, Saint John on Patmos, The Temptation of Saint
Anthony (fragment, Kansas City), and Saint Christopher all have peaceful scenes in which
the saints are resting, writing, filling a water jug, or carrying Christ across a river. Animals
could hardly be considered ominous or threatening in these paintings. In Saint John on
Patmos, a desperate insect-like devil seems unable to disturb the saint’s vison and the
prophecy of the end of the world he is writing. In Saint Christopher, the most intense scene is
a hunter hanging the bear he has killed with an arrow. The paintings of Christ Carrying the
Cross (Vienna), Christ Carrying the Cross (El Escorial), Christ Crowned with Thorns
(London), and Crucifixion with a Donor (Brussels) represent Christ’s final sacrifice, the
fulfillment of the ominous, inauspicious omen indicated by the owls. The multi-paneled
Visions of the Hereafter is a quite different work that would have been placed in four
rectangular wall niches. Two panels joyfully depict scenes after the Last Judgment:
Terrestrial Paradise and Ascent of the Blessed. Two other panels show the opposite destiny:
The Fall of the Damned and The River to Hell.

27
 Ecce Homo (Frankfurt) and Ecce Homo (Boston) a non-autograph painting, contain
owls because Christ is seen without the cross and before his ultimate physical torture.
Considering all works listed as autographs, workshops, or followers by the BRCP, no owls
are found in paintings that display Christ’s full torment (physical torture) and crucifixion. An
exception can be found in “The Arrest of Christ, Christ Crowned with Thorns, and
Flagellation” (Valencia); however, this is not an autograph painting by Bosch, but is rather
acknowledged as imitation of Bosch’s work.

CONCLUSION

Based on the aforementioned observations, the author proposes an iconography

regarding the owls in Hieronymus Bosch’s oeuvre. The owls depicted in Bosch’s works are
only an “evil icon” and not an expression of wisdom or a representation of night, death, a bad
omen, or witchcraft, as is sometimes regarded. The owls, as an evil sign, make sense when
shown near the newborn Christ in The Adoration of the Magi paintings, and standing nearby
in Ecce Homo. After evil reaches its full climax, the ultimate expression of Christ’s
crucifixion, owls disappear from the scene: The owls are no longer necessary as a threatening
signifier of what is going to happen, as all has been fulfilled.

ENDNOTES

1
See the graphics in J. W. L. Fernandes, The owls in H. Bosch’s paintings: an approach to
the painter’s workshop, master’s thesis, Leiden University 2020, p. 7.
https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/3146343
2
S. Goro. exhib.cat. Chinese Art Through the Eye of Sakamoto Goro – Sculpture,
Hong Kong (Sotheby’s) 2013.
3
See At the Mummies Ball. Owls in Ancient Egypt. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
https://www.atthemummiesball.com/owls-ancient-egypt/
4
Homero, Ilíada, São Paulo 2013.
5
J. Melnikova-Grigorjeva and O. Bogdanova, “An owl and a mirror: on Bosch’s visual
motif’s meaning,” Sign Systems Studies 38 (2010), pp. 210–41.
https://doi.org/10.12697/sss.2010.38.1-4.08,

28
6
Ovídio, Metamorfoses, trans. D. L. Dias, São Paulo 2017, p. 141, and El Djem Owl Mosaic,
symbolizing owl’s victory over envy, ca. 300 CE, El Jem Museum, Tunisia.
7
“And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of
pleasure” (Isaias 13:22).
8
The holy Bible: containing the old and new testaments; translated out of the original
tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, American Bible
Society, New York 1986, Isaiah 34:11.
9
Physiologus: a medieval book of nature lore, trans. M. J. Curley, Chicago 2009, Kindle
edition, pp. 10-11.
10
“I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel” (Mattheu 15:24) and B.
D. Hirsch, “From Jew to Puritan: the emblematic owl in early English culture,” in “This
earthly stage”: world and stage in late medieval and early modern England. Ed. B. D. Hirsch
and C. Wortham (Turnhout, Belgium 2010), and The Aberdeen manuscript,
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/
11
J. M. Ziolkowski, Talking animals: medieval Latin beast poetry, Philadelphia 1993, pp.
750, 1150.
12
W. S. Gibson, Hieronymus Bosch: an annotated bibliography, New York 1983, p. 66.
13
S. D. A. C. Ditner, Jheronimus Bosch e as tentações de Santo Antão, master’s thesis,
Campinas, Brasil 1998, p. 88.
http://www.repositorio.unicamp.br/handle/REPOSIP/284155
14
G. Schwartz, and S. Wythe. Jheronimus Bosch: the road to heaven and hell, New York
2016, pp. 73, 200.
15
L. Harris, The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch, Edinburgh 2002, p. 160.
16
Melnikova-Grigorjeva and Bogdanova, op. cit. (note 5), p. 225
17
R. Virginia, Bosch: Hieronymus Bosch and the Lisbon temptation: a view from the 3rd
millennium, New York 2004, p. 61.
18
I. B. Torviso and F. Marías, Bosch: reality, symbol and fantasy, Madrid 1982, p. 58
19
Harris, op. cit. (note 15), pp. 84-93.
20
From a parish church in 1336 to a cathedral in 1559.
21
Schwartz, op. cit. (note 14), p. 30.
22
Torviso, op. cit. (note 18), p. 52.
23
Even after Bosch, in 1526, 1 out of 18 habitants was a monastic; see Schwartz, op. cit.
(note 21), p. 23.
24
Jheronimus Bosch Conference Dinner, 16 September 2012.
29
25
S. Fischer, Jheronimus Bosch: the complete works, Köln 2016, pp. 38-39.
26
N. Büttner, “No flesh in the Garden of Earthly Delights—on the paintings of Hieronymus
Bosch,” in Aesthetics of the Flesh, eds. F. Ensslin and C. Klink, Berlin 2014, pp. 272–99.
27
Schwartz, op. cit. (note 21), p. 39.
28
Ibid, pp. 36, 41
29
M. Ilsink et al., Hieronymus Bosch—painter and draughtsman: catalogue raisonné,
Brussels 2016, p. 27.
30
Schwartz, op. cit. (note 14), p. 29.
31
Ibid, p. 65.
32
Torviso, op. cit. (note 18), p. 20.
33
P. Vandenbroeck, Utopia’s doom: the graal as paradise of lust, the sect of the free spirit
and Jheronimus Bosch’s so-called garden of delights, Leuven 2017, pp. 267–69.
34
N. Büttner, Painting as historical evidence of artistic emotions: the art of Hieronymus
Bosch and the soul of the artist in critical discourse in the seventeenth century, Turnhout
2015.
35
Jos Koldeweij, “A man like Bosch,” in Jheronimus Bosch His Sources, ‘s-Hertogenbosh
2007, pp. 16–33.
36
The Visions of Tundale describes the travels of a twelfth century knight in the hereafter for
three days. See Torviso, op. cit. (note 18), p. 144.
37
L. Dixon, “Chemical craft and spiritual science in Bosch’s St. Anthony triptych,” in
Jheronymus Bosch His Sources, ‘s-Hertogenbosch 2007, p. 131.
38
L. van Dijck, “Jheronymus Bosch inspired by people in his environment: research from the
archival sources,” in Jheronymus Bosch His Sources, pp. 115, 119.
39
Ibid, p. 119.
40
Ibid, p. 116.

41
Koldeweij, op. cit. (note 36), p. 27.
42
Ilsink, op. cit. (note 29), pp. 6–7.
43
R. Spronk, All by himself? remarks on painting technique and attributions in regard to
Hieronymus Bosch, Nijmegen 2011, p. 41.
44
M. Ainsworth. Exhib.cat. Workshop practice in early Netherlandish painting: an inside
view from van Eyck to Bruegel, New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) 1998.
45
Fernandes, op. cit. (note 1). pp. 1–77.

30
46
M. Ilsink, “On three drawings by Jheronymus Bosch,” in Jheronymus Bosch His Sources,
‘s-Hertogenbosch 2007), p. 179.
47
Paintings with Bosch’s signature are The Hermit Saints; The Temptation of Saint Anthony
(Lisbon); Saint Wilgefortis; The Adoration of the Magi (Madrid); The Last Judgement
(Bruges); The Haywain; Saint John on Patmos; and Saint Christopher. See Ilsink, op. cit.
(note 29), p. 49.
48
See “The Nürenberg Chronicle,” World Digital Library https://www.wdl.org/en/item/4108/
49
Rembert, op. cit. (note 17), pp. 34-37.
50
G. T. González and L.T. González, “América em El Jardín de las Delicias” in Archivo de
la Frontera, Archivo de la Frontera, 2020, pp. 1–71. www.archivodelafrontera.com
51
There is a clear pictorial continuity between the central and the left wing panel in The
Temptation of Saint Anthony; The Adoration of The Magi (Madrid version); The Haywain.
52
M. Riedl, “The Garden of Earthly Delights: A diachronic interpretation of Hieronymus
Bosch’s masterpiece.” Unpublished manuscript of a lecture given at Central European
University, Budapest, on 8 December 2011.
53
L. Silver, “Jheronimus Bosch and the Issue of Origins,” in Jheronimus Bosch His Sources,
‘s-Hertogenbosch 2007, pp. 38, 41.
54
The Holy Bible, op.cit. (note 8), Job 38:7.
55
The Holy Bible, op.cit. (note 8), Revelation 12:4–9.
56
Fischer, op. cit. (note 25), p. 151.
57
That theory states that Adam and Eve would not have been expelled from the Garden of
Eden, and the central panel shows the joy of their offspring in the Garden of Earthly Delights,
had sin not spoiled that dreamland. To accept that theory, one need also to believe that in a
15-year span, Bosh painted three works indicating two conflicting views of Genesis in their
left wings. See Schwartz, op. cit. (note 14), pp. 197–201.
58
The Holy Bible, op.cit. (note 8), Genesis 2:15-24.
59
The Holy Bible, op.cit. (note 8), Genesis 3:1-23.
60
B. Blauensteiner, “The fall of man and its consequences: thoughts on the pictorial
programme of Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights,” in: Jheronimus Bosch: his life, his
work, ‘s-Hertogenbosch 2016, pp. 16-32, and The Holy Bible, op.cit. (note 8), Genesis 3:24.
61
Perhaps the Ganges.
62
Perhaps the Nile.
63
A man is fondling a woman in the hollow of a blue fountain. See Ilsink, op. cit. (note 29),
p. 369, and Vandenbroeck, op. cit. (note 33), p. 225.
31
 64
J. Barlow, Dance through time: images of western social dancing from the Middle Ages to
modern times, Oxford 2012, p. 22.
65
Vandenbroeck, op. cit. (note 33), p. 228; Torviso op. cit. (note 18), pp. 163, 164; A. Storr,
The dynamics of creation, London 1972, pp. 137-50; D. Bax, Hieronymus Bosch: his picture-
writing deciphered, Rotterdam 1979; J. C. Cooper, An illustrated encyclopedia of traditional
symbols, London 2016.
66
E. de Bruyn, “Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Delights triptych—the eroticism of its
central panel and middle Dutch,” in Jheronimus Bosch His Sources, s’-Hertogenbosch 2007,
pp. 95–103.
67
Fischer, op. cit. (note 25), p. 155
68
M. Ilsink et al., From Bosch’s stable: Hieronymus Bosch and the Adoration of the Magi,
‘s-Hertogenbosch 2018.
69
Ilsink, op. cit. (note 73), p. 45.
70
Also known as Santo Antão, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the
Abbot, Anthony of Thebes, and Anthony the Anchorite.
71
J. W. L. Fernandes, “Psychoanalytical considerations on The Last Judgement by
Hieronymus Bosch,” final paper, Claretiano University, Curitiba 2016, p.17.
http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33201.71522
72
Ilsink, op. cit. (note 29), p. 297.
73
Fernandes, op. cit. (note 83), p. 13.
74
Fisher, op. cit. (note 25), p. 99
75
Ditner, op. cit. (note 13), p. 99,
http://www.repositorio.unicamp.br/handle/REPOSIP/284155

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