Before passing on to the school founded at Antwerp by Quentin Matsys
(_c._ 1466-1530), mention should be made of Hieronymus Bosch van Aeken
(_c._ 1462-1516), who, a follower of Ouwater, has as much right to
be counted among the masters of the Dutch as of the Flemish school.
Of his life we know but little. His pictures reveal that realistic
observation of everyday life which was to become the characteristic of
the Dutch school; but, added to it, there is a tendency towards the
grotesque which made him delight in subjects that gave him full scope
for the invention of weird monsters, devils, and spectres, such as the
demons in _The Damned_ (No. 1900), which is attributed to Bosch in
the official Catalogue, but is, like its companion, _Heaven_, at
the Lille Museum, the work of the unknown painter of the famous _Last
Judgment_ at Dantzig, which has by various experts been given in turn
to Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Memlinc. There is at the
Louvre a drawing which corresponds to so remarkable a degree with the
panel No. 1900, that it has long been held to be a study from the same
hand. This drawing is, however, more probably an early study by the
German master Martin Schöngauer after the Louvre panel. The picture was
formerly in the Duchâtel collection, and was given to the Louvre by the
Duc de la Tremoïlle.
[Illustration:
PLATE XVIII.—GERARD DAVID
(1460?-1523)