Allegory of Intemperance, ca. 1495–1500
Oil on panel, 14 1/8 x 12 3/8 in. (35.9 x 31.4 cm)
Gift of Hannah D. and Louis M. Rabinowitz
1959.15.22
Famous for his dreamlike or nightmarish allegories of contemporary morality, Bosch disguised the literal meanings of scenes within his paintings as illustrations to proverbs or visual renderings of puns. This painting is a fragment, with the so-called "Ship of Fools" now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, of the left wing of a triptych. Together the two paintings symbolize Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins of medieval theology. The right wing of the triptych, the "Death and the Miser," now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, symbolized another of the deadly sins, Avarice. The center panel of the triptych is lost or has not yet been identified, but undoubtedly combined emblems of the five remaining sins: Pride, Envy, Lust, Anger, and Sloth.
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