a curious and opaque visual device ... an inverted funnel worn as a headdress

2. a curious and opaque visual device ... an inverted funnel worn as a headdress

3. Funnels, Jewish hats, wizardry ...
an crossbill wearing a funnel in Temptation of Saint Anthony, Lisbon,
a glutton rotund with an inverted funnel on his head in the Gluttony and Lust,
a funnel with arms and legs sticking out in the Nelson-Atkins fragment of The Temptation of Saint Anthony …
All of those upside-down funnel hats do mean something … science, distraction, wisdom, charlatanism, impiety,
an allusion to deception, fraud, false wisdom or madness
but its symbolism belongs to a bygone age, Bosch's work simply reflects the beliefs and ideologies of its time.
Obviously, all rests on present day interpretation.
We're as lost to Bosch as he is to us.

4. Jheronimus Bosch's inverted funnel

6. Jheronimus Bosch
Triptych of Temptation of Saint Anthony. Triptyque de la Tentation de saint Antoine
1500
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
a bird with an inverted blue funnel on its head, and a bright red cloak. It has long, floppy ears with small polka dots on them,
its human legs bear a pair of ice skates, and it skates on those across a frozen stream
and
a monster cat wearing an inverted funnel behind the monk with glasses

14. Jheronimus Bosch
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La Tentation de saint Antoine
1520
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
Bearded monk kneels and fills pitcher from stream ...
in foreground appear fantastic creatures:
the funnel has consumed the entire body, leaving just the arms and legs sticking out

19. Jheronimus Bosch
The Last Judgment. Le Jugement dernier
1495-1505
Groeningemuseum, Bruges
It was not until his Last Judgment, that Bosch makes the visual transformation from the Jewish hat to an inverted funnel …

29. Jheronimus Bosch
Gluttony and Lust. La Gourmandise et la Luxure
1490-1500
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven
he’s not a charlatan, he’s not a madman, he’s not a Jew, he’s just a chubby drunk with an inverted funnel on the head …

34. Jheronimus Bosch, workshop or follower of
The Extraction of the Stone of Madness. L'Extraction de la pierre de folie
1501-1505
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
... a charlatan or surgeon removing the stone of madness from a patient's head by trepanation, wears an upside-down funnel
on his head
a funnel hat symbolizes deception and reveals that he is not a learned man but rather a fraudster

40. Jheronimus Bosch
The Haywain Triptych. Triptyque du Le Chariot de foin
1510-1516
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
it's not a funnel that this Jew wears …
it's just a pointed hat, regularly worn by the Jewish community at the time

45. Jheronimus Bosch
Ecce Homo
1577
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt am Main
an unusual armoured version of Jewish hat …

50. Anonymous. Follower of Jheronimus Bosch, d'après Jérôme Bosch
Concert in the Egg. Le Concert dans l’œuf
1561
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, Lille
one man with a water bird on his head,
another with a building mid-construction,
a nun with the owl on her head
and
a foolish philosopher wearing glasses and a funnel on his head, a symbol of ignorance and insanity

55. Jheronimus Bosch, follower of
Christ in Limbo. Christ aux Limbes
1575
Indianapolis Museum of Art
an eccentric, fantastical and barbaric world, macabre and comical scenes
two funnels can be seen:
one, huge, knocked down on the ground,
the other led by a demonic angel ...
(nevertheless, Christ appears, pushing a heavy bronze door brandishing the banner of the Resurrection ...)

60. and other demons with inverted funnels are already there to feast …
(the inverted funnel did not die with Bosch in 1516, such was the popularity and influence
of his paintings that others propagated their visual elements)

62. Maerten de Vos
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La tentation de saint Antoine
1591-1594
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp
Maerten de Vos seems to have been the first to develop Bosch’s inverted funnel
one of the more Bosch-like creatures …
a portmanteau of human and bird that wears an inverted funnel on its head, and is reading sheet music

68. Cornelis Massijs, attribué à
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La tentation de saint Antoine
1540
Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Brussels
a tiny creature ...
with a shiny inverted funnel

72. David Teniers the Younger, David Teniers le Jeune
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La tentation de saint Antoine
1660
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille
David Teniers the Younger painted at least three different versions around 1650-1660, over a century after Bosch’s death
on the back of a flying narwhal a figure wearing an inverted funnel on its head …

77. David Teniers the Younger, David Teniers le Jeune
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La tentation de saint Antoine
1647
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
a menagerie of daemons, some of which have their origins in Bosch’s work ...
the figure flying on a fish has changed from the previous painting, but still wears its distinctive inverted funnel

83. Joos van Craesbeeck
The Temptation of Saint Anthony. La tentation de saint Antoine
1650
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe
by about 1650, Joos van Craesbeeck was using some of Bosch’s iconography ...
a naked man with an inverted funnel on his head, playing a lute and sitting on a duck-horse-unicorn

88. olga_oes
Jheronimus Bosch's inverted funnel
L’entonnoir renversé de Jheronimus Bosch
images and text credit www.
Music The Piano Guys Me and My Cello (Happy Together)
created olga.e.
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