The Puzzle of the Plainest Lady in the Garden Panel
A 5-minute video looking at one of the most remarkable but least remarked women in the triptych.
Exactly what the story Bosch is telling here is not obvious. There’s definitely something in this ill-favoured lady and her hypnotic appeal. We go into it as far as the visual facts can take us.
There is an open line of enquiry in the man she has caught in her shell, the horizontal one at the bottom. He seems a very content captive, but there is just a hint of something amiss in the vicious bramble spike curling up to his rear. The bramble – with its evil-looking deadly nightshade-type berries – continues up through the shell to act as a something of a barrier between the women and the young men waiting on her.
The fact that the captive is grinning at us down a glass, alchemical-style tube, is also pretty hermetic.
Not mentioned in the video is some evidence that the young man in the trio above really is next in line for the witchy woman. He is carrying a spray of flowers, as you do when paying a certain sort of visit to a certain sort of woman.
NB: A small observation. The hand on his shoulder belongs not to the older man but to his young companion. Were it Loading videoa right hand, a thumb would be visible. It’s the young man’s left hand. The young man who is smiling with unconcealed interest at the older.
I read (and photographed) Bax's Hieronymus Bosch – His picture writing deciphered. That's the one in the British Library (translated by his wife, I think, M.A. Bax-Botha). What's the name of that Last Judgment book, I'd be very interested in that.
(Cont.)
Author Bax states that the woman and man INSIDE the pink fruit in the front are a couple, of which both commit adultery.
Behind the fruit are two young men, one with a flower in his hand (feminine symbol), the other has sort of a strawberry (with flowery butterfly wings) on his back. It has a thorny stem with a flower near his anus. Probably a hint at the peccary’s contra naturam.
Orchids with butterfly-like wings had butterfly names, and parts were much loved aphrodisiacs. Capella could mean meretrix, and “little moth” meant darling. The third man watches.
I might add that there are some six similar trio relationships on Love Garden.
It seems Bosch not only disliked such adultery, but perhaps was afraid for it…
His wife was very important for his career.