Baron Joseph van der Elst

Belgian, 1896 - 1971

Explore Selected Works

Dirck Bouts, Madonna and Child, c. 1465, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1986.67.1

Madonna and Child

Dirck Bouts · c. 1465 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1986.67.1

A naked man with ghostly white skin sits upright in a canopied bed set in a narrow room in this tall, vertical painting. Wearing a black cap, he looks to our left in profile toward a skeleton who comes through a door along the left edge of the composition. The man gestures at the skeleton with one hand and, with the other, toward a bag of money held up by a small demon next to the bed to our left. The skeleton wears a white shroud and holds an arrow. A winged angel kneels next to the man in the bed, one hand on the man’s shoulder and the other lifted to gesture at a crucifix hanging in the window over the door. A small devil on the canopy above looks down onto the bed. At the foot of the bed, a man wearing a green robe and headdress drops coins into a sack held by another demon. Three more demons crawl about and hide under the chest. Pieces of armor and weapons lie on the ground to the right in front of a stone ledge in the foreground. Two pieces of clothing drape over the ledge to our left.
Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser, c. 1485/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.33

Death and the Miser

Hieronymus Bosch · c. 1485/1490 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.33