With the spotlight on Hieronymus Bosch in the year of the 500th anniversary of his death, a Dutch specialist has raised an intriguing puzzle. Why is the prominent bagpipe player in the foreground of The Haywain holding his instrument incorrectly? The piper is the figure in blue, just to the right of the centre. He is seducing the nun with a sausage dangling on a string. The Haywain is now one of the key works in the Prado’s current retrospective.
Jos Koldeweij, a curator of the exhibition held earlier this year in ‘s-Hertogenbosch (and professor at Radboud University Nijmegen), points out that the musician is playing as if he was left-handed. But if he was left-handed, then the position of the two hands should be reversed when holding the pipe.
Koldeweij believes the most likely explanation is that Hieronymus Bosch has “taken the figure from a print”, which might well show the image in reverse. The question is: what prints with bagpipe players might have been accessible to Bosch in around 1515, when The Haywain was painted. Readers are requested to send any ideas to: londonoffice@theartnewspaper.com
• Bosch: the Fifth Centenary Exhibition is at the Prado, Madrid, until 11 September
