The Last Judgement
 

Legs sprout from grotesquely grinning heads, obscene bladder-like forms develop snouts and legs; some creatures are all head or rump. This taste for monsters Bosch shared with his age, which This same attitude is no less apparent in the sadly damaged »Last Judgment« fragment in Munich. It is occasionally identified as part of the altarpiece commissioned by Philip the Handsome in 1504, but was probably done somewhat later, towards the end of Bosch's life. A piece of drapery visible in the lower left-hand corner is all that remains of a figure which must have been much larger in scale than the other figures in the fragment. Perhaps it represented an oversized St Michael in the act of weighing souls, such as appears in Roger van der Weyden's triptych at Beaune. Behind and to the right of the drapery, the resurrected slowly climb out of their graves, among others, a king and several ecclesiastics, all distinguished by their headdresses. Around them dart monsters whose gossamer wings and long waving filaments and antennae glow against thedarkground.lt is difficult to remember that these jewel-like, delicately luminous creatures are engaged in tormenting the damned. Hell, for once, has become an aesthetic delight.

Last Judgement (fragment)
1506-08
Oil on wood, 60 x 114 cm
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Studies of Monsters
Pen drawing, 86 x 162 mm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
 

Animal studies
Pen drawing, 86 x 182 mm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Last Judgement
Oil on panel, 99,5 x 60,3 cm (central panel), 99,5 x 29 cm (each wing)
Groeninge Museum, Bruges

Last Judgement (detail)
Groeninge Museum, Bruges

Last Judgment. Paradise (fragment )
Oil on panel
Private collection

Last Judgment. Death of the Reprobate (fragment)
Oil on panel
Private collection