Iconology of the Wayfarer Triptych

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

The older and wiser pedlar, representing the viewer, takes the role of the penitent individual facing the end of his life (p. 191)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#307

The New Testament parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus the beggar [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:19-31] offers only an indirect biblical source for Bosch’s painting, whose iconography is more closely related to late Medieval prints of the Ars moriendi, the arr of dying [Ars moriendi, ca. 1415-1450]. Such works advised those who wished to get to Heaven of the right way to prepare for death [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510]. Bosch shows an old miser, in his bedchamber and on the point of death, being exposed to temptation one decisive last time by a monster devil who offers him a bag of money. (p. 192)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#313

Wooden gate with ox and bird from The Pedlar

… the right shutter represents old age and the question of what our status will be in the hereafter. (p. 192)

Fischer, 2016

Jheronimus Bosch

#335

The Axiology and Ideology of Jheronimus Bosch

The pedlar is an exceptional figure in Bosch’s oeuvre. Whereas with Bosch almost all poor people are good-for-nothings, he is a good man. He is a poor vagrant (with ragged clothing), but he is repentant: at the end of his life (his hair is white) he looks back, as if to judge his own life path. He sees robbery and revelry, and the punishment of crime (reverse of The Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515, “The Haywain Triptych”]); in the Rotterdam version, he leaves sinful lust (the brothel) and is about to open a gate towards better times. In his oeuvre, the pedlar is the only good common man, the only secular moral example, witness to another paradox in Bosch: in his view the popular classes consist of sinners and fools, but at the same time his most striking exemplary moral figure is a poor vagabond. (pp. 99-100)

Vandenbroeck, 2017

#336

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

Bosch also did not ignore the worldly side of the temptation to commit deadly sins. For avarice, he depicted The Death of a Miser on a panel that was surely the shutter of a triptych configuration, viewed obliquely leftwards in terms of its perspective [Marijnissen, 2007, 320-324]. The dying man lies in his bed amidst a cluttered room of stored legal papers with seals, knightly armour and bags of money in locked chests, Demons hover around all of these worldly trophies, and a second standing old figure, despite a rosary at his waist, holds a coin in his hand above a moneybag. One other demon at this last moment still offers the dying old man a moneybag, to which he reaches even now. At the same time, he stares obsessively at the shrouded, skeletal figure of Death in the open doorway, who bears a mortal arrow aimed at him. Consequently both of these conflicting preoccupations preclude the old man from seeing what viewers can – namely, a guardian angel behind him, who attempts to redirect his vision upwards to the window above that doorway, where divine light enters the room across a hanging crucifix. Even at the very last moment, demons and worldly temptations can distract errant humanity into deadly sin, here avarice. Scholars have rightly invoked the fifteenth-century text Ars moriendi (How to die) [Ars moriendi, ca. 1415-1450], where a Christian on his deathbed is tempted to sin by demons but is ultimately consoled and saved by Christ and his angelic forces [Tentler, 2005; Olds, 1966; Ariès, 1981, 107-110]. (p. 129)

Silver, 2017

Crimes and Punishments. Bosch’s Hell

#338

The Adoration of the Magi

The Philadelphia figure [Bosch, 16th century] does not, however, resemble the portrait drawing now in Arras that has long been identified as Bosch; it resembles more closely The Pedlar in Rotterdam. That said, the grey hair and somewhat weathered, even perhaps bemused, face aligns with the dating of the panel: Bosch would have been in his early fifties around 1500. (p. 212)

Atkins, 2017

#340

Hieronymus Bosch: The pilgrimage of life triptych

The grey-haired old man who was originally on the outer (closed) sides of the triptych’s wings is an itinerant trader; judging from the attributes hanging from the wicker basket on his back, his wares included cat-skins and soup ladles. [Bruegel, 1564]. The bodkin and thread pinned to the hat he holds indicates that he was also active as a cobbler, while the holes in his clothing and his mismatched shoes point to a life of misery. It is possible that he has just squandered his money in the dilapidated house behind him. (p. 294)

Lammertse, 2017

#357

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

The painting in Washington, which was originally the inside of the right wing, shows an old man sitting up in bed who is faced with a crucial decision – whether to take the bag of money being offered to him by a devil, ur whether to behold the crucifix in the window, which an angel is urging him to do. (p. 298)

Lammertse, 2017

Hieronymus Bosch: The pilgrimage of life triptych

#366

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

Remarkably, the underdrawing of the painting in Washington reveals that the dying man had originally accepted the money pouch from the devil and was holding in his other hand a costly goblet. At first, therefore, Bosch had spelled out the old man’s ill-advised decision. Evidently the artist found this too obvious, though, and changed the composition in such a way as to leave his fate up in the air [Hand & Wolff, 1986, 19]. (p. 298)

Lammertse, 2017

Hieronymus Bosch: The pilgrimage of life triptych

#397

Koldeweij, Vandenbroeck & Vermet, 2001

There is only one instance in which Bosch shows an ordinary person ‘walking the straight path’ as the principal theme of a painting. There are two autograph versions of the Pedlar, one on the outside of the Hay Wain Triptych [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515], the other on the Rotterdam panel… The other Pedlar in Rotterdam is similar to the one in the Hay Wain in many respects, although his gaze is sterner and his hair is greying rather than white already. He has just passed a rundown brothel and is about to open a gate that bars his way. A magpie sits on the lowest bar of the gate, which stands next to a tree, with an owl perching on a bare branch. The bird stares at a great titmouse in the branches below. (pp. 183-184)

Hieronymus Bosch. The Complete Paintings and Drawings

#574

Wooden gate with ox and bird from The Pedlar

The Hearers in both of Bosch’s paintings are grey haired men, whose journey through physical life is nearing its end. The wayfarer in the Rotterdam panel walks towards the gate with its uncaged magpie, while the peddler in the Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515] approaches a bridge. Both of these images symbolize the transition to the afterworld, and the possibility of life and freedom which it can bring. (p. 164)

Harris, 1995

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

#575

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

The Hearers in both of Bosch’s paintings are grey haired men, whose journey through physical life is nearing its end. The wayfarer in the Rotterdam panel walks towards the gate with its uncaged magpie, while the peddler in the Haywain [Bosch, ca. 1512-1515, “The Haywain Triptych”] approaches a bridge. Both of these images symbolize the transition to the afterworld, and the possibility of life and freedom which it can bring… The long staffs of bone which are held by both wayfarers probably express the same image of the world through which the two men are travelling. (p. 164)

Harris, 1995

#577

Hat on left hand from The Pedlar

The spinder in the hat held out by the Hearer in the panel at Rotterdam is a traditional symbol of the weaving of the thread of physical life. Only one small strand remains on it, and as Wertheim says, this is probably a sign that the peddler has very little left on earth. Alternatively, in the interpretation of Stein Schneider, the spindle itself is an image of continuing death and rebirth, which implies reincarnation [Wertheim Aymès, 1957, 39; Schneider, 1984, 59f.; Cooper, 1982, 170]. Perhaps Bosch is expressing both ideas. In any case, the gallows on the hill behind the gate and spindle warns us that the pilgrim will suffer spiritual death if his desires lead to his rebirth in the physical world. the gallows on the hill behind the gate and spindle warns us that the pilgrim will suffer spiritual death if his desires lead to his rebirth in the physical world. (p. 165)

Harris, 1995

The secret heresy of Hieronymus Bosch

#586

The figure of the gray man with a troubled expression and faltering gait in Bosch’s painting was a familiar one in real life in the wake of the Second World War. From his late Gothic mirror frame he steps out into the present day; his portrait might be that of a displaced person making his way homeward. His face is turned backward, showing that the refugee has only just now mustered up the courage to set his sights on a more hopeful goal. As though unable to see any brighter future ahead, he remains caught in the past, in the adversities he has barely surmounted. Retracing his straying footsteps, he realizes how senselessly he has staked his life-and lost. His eyes have a glassy stare; his hair stands on end; his lips are pressed together with the bitter aftertaste. (p. 257)

#596

The outward characterization of the Prodigal Son [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Luke, 15:11-32] stresses his degradation in order to bring out the more strikingly the signs of his inner resurgence. His haggard face looks too old for his age; his hair, sticking up through the holes in his hood, is prematurely gray. His coat, worn as it is, cannot quite hide its once stylish cut. The cobbler’s thread and awl stuck in his hat stand for drudgery, for shoddy patchwork and futile toil. In his Eulenspigel engraving of 1520 Lucas van Leyden also shows a hank of yarn and a darning needle stuck in the father’s hat, as well as a spoon like the one the Prodigal carries in his back pack-proof that the spoon is a symbol of vagabondage [van Leyden, 1520]. (p. 259)

Old man in green and chest from Death and the Miser

#627

…the treasure chest into which a gaunt, housebound old man, leaning on his stick and smiling a wornout smile, drops the guilder he has managed to save. This touching figure might have stepped straight from the pages of Jacob Grimm’s Rede über das Alter where Grimm, then an old man of seventy-five himself expatiates soberly on the vexations of avaritia senilis, the avarice of old age [Grimm, 1911, 137]. Despite its austere economy the figure is boldly drawn; all the signs of decrepitude have been intimately experienced: the sunken temples, the toothless mouth and the already Hippocratic nose the exaggeratedly careful movement of the hand, and the shuffling, crooked stance. This old man is a pictorial rendering of the “vain show” of the Psalmist: “Surely every man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them” [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, Psalm, 39:6]. (pp. 298-299)

Vaulted ceiling from Death and the Miser

#634

The thyrsus-pinecones, symbolizing vegetative life, and those multiple dividing lines, which recall the sunrays of The Table of Wisdom [Bosch, ca. 1505-1510], point to the deeper meaning of the vault. This meaning eludes the old man, greedily intent upon his earthly possessions and therefore never looking up to Heaven, and the dying man, who cannot see what is above because the bed canopy blocks his view. But Death is well aware of what this division of the sphere of life into four sections means. (p. 299)

Man on his deathbed with a chest from Death and the Miser

#636

The title by which this painting has traditionally been known, “The Death of the Miser,” does not do justice to this vast concept. The figure of the old man represents man pure and simple. He is portrayed as a miser only because that notorious vice of old age is a hopeless worldly delusion. As Cicero observes in De Senectute, what indeed could be more foolish than to provide an ever-larger viaticum as the way ahead gets shorter and shorter? [Ciceron, 1938] And in the words of I Timothy 6:10: “Love of money is the root of all evil.” [English Standard Version Bible, 2001, 1 Timothy, 6:10] (pp. 299-300)

#675

The Peddler by Hieronymus Bosch, a study in detectio

Andrew Pigler found the key for such a new interpretation [Pigler, 1950, 132]. He pointed out the similarities between the peddler by Bosch and a entine woodcut of the second half of the fifteenth century [Baldini, ca. 1464]. This print belongs to one of those series’ of pictographs which Planetenkinderbilder and which illustrate the influence of the Seven Planets on human character and destiny [7]. The woodcut shows the planet god Saturn at the top in the clouds and his “children” below, on earth. The figure mentioned by Pigler appears in the lower center of the print. It is an elderly man wandering over the land with a stick in his hand and his back bent under a heavy load. He is a “child” of Saturn. The advanced age and the heavy burden of Bosch’s peddler are features coinciding with those of the figure in the print [Philip, 1958, 4, note 8; Cuttler, 1957; Panofsky, Giehlow & Saxl, 1923, 9]. (pp. 3-4)

Philip, 1958

#685