La Vision de Tondal

This panel comes from the world of Hieronymus Bosch, painted by a follower rather than the master himself, and it illustrates a story that was already six centuries old. Tondal was a wealthy, careless Irish knight who fell as if dead for three days while an angel walked his soul through hell. He lies asleep in the lower left, his name inscribed beneath him in Gothic letters. In the centre a huge face rises from the ground, trees growing from its ears, coins pouring through its nose into a tub where sinners bathe. The tale reached the painter through handwritten copies, first set down in Regensburg in the 12th century.