The Wykehamist
a strangeness, which can be seen in both Fortitudo and du Hamel’ s print.
Sadly, my theory that I had found a Bosch which had escaped the scholars such as Friedländer hiding in Berkshire, was undermined by a discovery.
War Elephant. A painting in a different private collection in Corella, Spain. This painting is agreed to be by a follower of Bosch, and most likely after du Hamel’ s engraving. It is not a perfect copy, losing some of the finer details in the swarming figures, as well as the addition of vibrant colours, close to those of Bosch, yet off. A failed attempt. Fortitudo does not lose such details, and there is no attempt at mimicking the colours of Bosch. The grisaille coloration was one which Bosch explored in paintings such as the exterior view of his Last Judgment Triptych, and the outside panels of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, meaning that it is not ruled out as the missing painting, being more typical of Bosch.
Here I have put all three of those images of war elephants together; du Hamel’ s, the Spanish coloured variant thought to be based on du Hamel’ s, and Fortitudo. All three are clearly of the same scene, with some slight differences being evident in the Spanish Version such as the hunched-over figure
not being present, as well as the shrunken treatment of the composition. Another point was then put to me, that because of the way in which prints were made in the 16 th century, the lost War Elephant would likely be a mirror image of du Hamel’ s print.
Reverses were the 16 th century convention. However, I was able to find near contemporary examples such as this Carracci print of a Veronese altarpiece. This shows that some artists went through the painstaking process of reversing their engravings, such that the final print would be in the same orientation as their reference.
In the end, I feel that I was unable to gather enough evidence to authenticate that Fortitudo is the lost work by Bosch. Even if it is not the lost work, it proves an interesting part of the Bosch Canon, showing the influence he held, leading to so many contemporary reproductions and prints. However, I feel that because it shares many more similarities with the engraving of du Hamel than the painting in Spain, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that this painting is that which King Philip II of Spain owned, and is the missing Bosch.
War Elephant— Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Corella, Spain, Private Collection
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