#netherlandish

This was one of a set marking the turns of the year — six of them, apparently, though only five made it through. They were painted for a rich merchant's house rather than a church, which was still a fairly new idea. It's said the winters around then were genuinely savage across that part of Europe, so the cold isn't invented.

Apparently this was one of six paintings a merchant banker in Antwerp commissioned to track the months of the year — this one's high summer. Only five are known to survive.

This started life, from what's recorded, as a tabletop rather than a wall hanging — you were meant to look down into it like a dinner plate. Whether it's actually by Bosch himself or a workshop follower has been argued over for more than a century.

The two outer panels fold shut over the middle like doors, and the backs of them are painted grey — a world with the colour not switched on yet. Whether the middle is a warning about giving in to temptation or something a lot fonder than that, no one seems to have settled in five hundred years.

Supposedly death coming for everyone regardless of rank was a stock subject back then — a 'dance of death' you'd see on church walls and in cheap prints — and this drags it out of the church and into open country. It went through a long restoration not many years ago, which is apparently why the colours come across as strong as they do now.

This is one panel out of four on what happens after you die — the other three are a lot less pleasant, and they were probably the wings of something bigger that's since been broken up. Wikipedia says not everyone is convinced he painted them at all.