The 'Ship of Fools' Arrives in Budapest

The 'Ship of Fools', the Paris Louvre's only title by Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450 – 1516), arrived in Budapest on Wednesday to be put on display in the upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts which will be one of the most significant Bosch shows in the international museum world in the last fifty years, the state news agency MTI reports.

“Hieronymus Bosch produced one of the most exciting and emblematic artistic achievements in the world; his paintings have captured people’s imagination for centuries,” László Baán, the director general of the museum, told journalists while unwrapping the painting.

The exhibition entitled “Between Hell and Paradise. The Enigmatic World of Hieronymus Bosch” will present almost half of the master’s painted oeuvre including ten autograph paintings with the Ship of Fools among them, Baán said.

Other highlight titles include the Last Judgement triptych from Bruges’ Groeningemuseum, the Adoration of the Magi from the New York Metropolitan Museum, Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos from Berlin’s Gemaldegalerie and the Ecce Homo from Frankfurt’s Stadel Museum, he added.

The show will altogether feature close to 90 works on loan from some 50 public and private collections including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery in London, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Prado in Madrid.

The exhibition will run from April 9 until July 17.