The Last Jugdement Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch

The Last Jugdement Triptych by Hieronymus Bosch is a unique masterpiece of Dutch painting from around 1500 and, as part of the permanent collection, forms the centrepiece of Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Along with The Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado in Madrid, this three-panel altarpiece is one of the painter’s largest and most densely populated works. Bosch created the Last Judgement Triptych between approximately 1490 and 1505. The altarpiece presents a moralising pictorial programme which, through dramatic, detailed scenes, depicts the impending fate of humanity from a Christian perspective – from the Fall of the first human couple to the Last Judgement.

In form, the Last Judgement Triptych corresponds to a three-part winged altarpiece, as traditionally used in Christian worship. During the week, the wings usually remained closed. Only for Sunday and feast day masses were the wings of the altar opened, so that the entire pictorial programme on the inner sides of the wings and the central panel was revealed. 

It is not known whether Bosch’s Last Judgement Triptych was originally installed in a church or chapel. It is first documented in 1659 in the collection of the art-loving Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Habsburg governor in Brussels. It came into the Academy’s possession in 1822 through the bequest of Count Lamberg-Sprinzenstein, who had acquired the triptych from the imperial collection around 1787. Today, like the entire collection of paintings, it is owned by the Republic of Austria.


The pictorial programme of the triptych

The left-hand altar panel depicts Paradise, showing the creation of Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden by the Archangel Gabriel. In the dark clouds above the paradisiacal landscape, the battle and fall of the angel Lucifer takes place, together with other renegade angels cast out of the Kingdom of Heaven by God.

The theme of the seven deadly sins and the punishment of sinful humans is depicted in a richly detailed manner. On the central panel, bizarre scenes of torture unfold in a gloomy and partly burning night landscape, populated by countless demons and devils. In the heavenly sphere above, Christ is enthroned as the Judge of the World, flanked by the Apostles, with Mary and Peter above, surrounded by angels with trumpets. In the upper left corner, a small golden glimmer of light hints at the opening to heavenly paradise, whilst the upper right corner is plunged into darkness. Against the equally dark background of the right-hand side panel, the torments of the sinners in hell and eternal damnation continue.

The depictions on the outer wings are painted in shades of grey, using the so-called grisaille technique. This makes the contrast between the closed altar and the colourful, richly detailed inner panels all the more striking.
The figures of saints on the outer panels, as models for a life pleasing to God, form a counterpoint to the iconography on the inner side.

On the left-hand outer panel is the pilgrim saint James the Greater; on the right is Saint Bavo or, according to other interpretations, Saint Hippolytus. The latter interpretation could point to the possible patron of the altar, Hippolyte de Berthoz, a chamberlain at the court of Charles the Bold; yet the identity of the figure depicted has not yet been fully clarified – like many other mysteries that the painting presents.