How to Read Paintings: Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch

Deciphering the moral wheels of Bosch’s extraordinary image

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (tabletop) (c.1505) by Hieronymus Bosch. Oil on panel. 150 × 120 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Image source Wikiart (public domain)

This remarkable object is thought to have been created by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. It is in fact a tabletop, and is nothing short of an illustrated encyclopaedia that depicts the Seven Deadly Sins across each of…