The Garden of Earthly Delights, 15th century
Hieronymus Bosch
Oil paint on panel · 205.5 x 384.9 cm
A triptych that tips from paradise into a garden of strange pleasures and then into hell.
Bosch's fantastical triptych runs from Eden to a teeming garden of pleasure to a nightmarish hell, swarming with surreal, inventive detail. Painted around 1500, it is centuries ahead of its time — endlessly strange, and rewarding the closest possible looking.
What you're looking at
It is three panels, and they are not one scene: Eden on the left, the crowded garden in the centre, hell on the right, meant to be read across. The wings close, and painted on their backs is the world as a grey sphere before life. The density is the point — there is no passage anywhere in it that does not reward being looked at closely, and at 4K you can find the bird-headed figure eating people on the right-hand panel without difficulty.
On a Frame TV
About 1.76:1, which is almost exactly a Frame TV's 1.78 — the closest natural fit in the entire collection, and the clean crop is effectively the whole picture. It needs a large panel: at any smaller size the detail that makes it worth owning simply disappears.
Museo del Prado · Visit it in Madrid →
- 4K master file (3840px+)
- Samsung Frame TV–ready crop
- Phone wallpaper crop
- Printable art card
Public domain · one .zip, no sign-up
More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Hieronymus Bosch.
