Friday, May 25, 2007

(14) another vanitas triptych?


I've explained on the el bosco updates page that El Jardín de las Delicias resembles later vanitas paintings, and that Ecclesiastes 1:2, Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes; vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas, is a rare if not unique subject for a triptych. But it may not necessarily be the only old triptych where Ecclesiastes 1:2 is a major theme. Most art historians are persuaded that the Ship of Fools (Paris), a fragment with swimmers (New Haven), and the so-called Death of the Miser (Rotterdam) were once all part of the same triptych, since dendrochronological analysis has shown that all are painted on wood from the same tree. There have been no reasonable explanations of the hypothetical triptych's subject, and I am not persuaded that there ever was a triptych. The reason I am not persuaded is that the so-called Death of the Miser looks to me like a real scene from the life of St. Francis, and the scene that supposedly would go on the other side of a square center panel, the people drinking and swimming, seems to be more allegorical. But if the overall subject was Ecclesiastes 1:2, then maybe it would make sense to have a historical scene showing Saint Francis falling ill and then taking up a life of poverty, and an allegorical scene illustrating omnia vanitas where the concept of vanitas applies to Franciscans and laymen alike.
What would the triptych have looked like? There is a tapestry supposedly based on an original by Hieronymus Bosch that combines Franciscan and vanitas themes. If there was a triptych, it might have been somewhat like the reconstruction illustrated here. It might be that all of the images in this hypothetical reconstruction are copies of lost originals, and the date seems to have to be uncertain even though art historians know the approximate date the tree was cut down to make the panels. At least one additional version of the Haywain theme is lost, i.e. the version José de Sigüenza remembered as having dancers riding on the haywain, and there might have been others. The proportions of the tapestry shown here might have been changed to match the other tapestries in the set.

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