Preparatory Sketch, Studio of Hieronymus Bosch, Ink on Paper, Late 15th Century

Originates from: Netherlands

Era: Late 15th Century

Dimensions: 19” W x 15” H (frame) matted to 9” W x 11”

Done in the studio of Hieronymus Bosch (? - 1516) as a preparatory sketch, likely by a studio assistant or intern with depictions of what would be the famous Tree Man as well as an incredibly interesting scene of figures, human and grotesquely inhuman interacting. Many of these figures used and depicted in one of the most dramatic and moving religious allegorical paintings of the renaissance, The Garden of Earthly Delights.

The Tree Man, likely a representation of Bosch himself, is a depiction of a man with tree trunk legs and petrifying from his back, a broken egg torso with a tavern scene inside as well as a perched owl, a common icon in Bosch’s work. Slumped over in reference to “Incurvatus In Se” - with theological meaning of a life lived inward for one’s self, as a warning of vanity.

Collector stamps show this was previously in the collections of Flemish painter Prosper Henry Lankrink (1628 - 1692) and Auguste Desperet, French engraver and collector (1804 - 1865)