AT FIRST glance this painting seems to be a perfectly conventional Adoration—the Virgin, the Child, the manger, the Magi, the shepherds. But the more we look at the picture, the more disturbing it becomes. Who is that crowned, half-dressed, half-drunken figure in the background, and why does the composition lead the eye straight to him? Why are the dangly parts of his costume tilted to one side—is it because he is hip-swaying back and forth, making his little bell tinkle? Why is he wearing one crown and carrying another? Why is there a transparent casing over the sore on his leg?Chapter 9 The Adoration of the Magi
Bosch, Adoration of the Magi (detail). Madrid, Prado.
Leaving these puzzles aside for the moment, the next thing we notice is that one of the Magi has been replaced by Jesus. There he is, looking vaguely into the distance, with a paten in his hands—and what is that on the paten but the broken bits of the holy Eucharist?nBosch, Adoration of the Magi (details).
The posture of the mysterious stranger, with his extended bare leg, is one we are used to seeing only in pictures of Jesus, and the stranger is wearing, literally, a crown of thorns. The knot in his sash tells us that he is a bridegroom, like the Christ Child in Cana. The crystal covering on his leg reminds us of certain reliquaries in which the bones of saints are displayed, and the sore in the leg is a mark of leprosy.
The crown he is carrying matches Jesus's mozzetta and obviously belongs to him. But there is a line of bright dots, apparently representing beads on the stranger's veil, that falls from the crown the stranger is wearing toward the one he carries. This tells us that the second crown belongs to Christ, but the stranger is waiting to put it on. If we take these clues at face value, there are three Christs in this picture.Evidently we are being asked to imagine that the ideal Jesus, the one who was not born of woman, has materialized uninvited in this traditional scene. Behind him is the Antichrist, who is sometimes described as a leper in medieval legend.n
Bosch, Adoration of the Magi (detail).
The grotesque size of the Virgin and her expression of contained resentment have often been remarked but never explained. Perhaps the solution lies in the fact that Antichrist's mother, in the Middle Ages, was known as the Antivirgin.n In that case the babe on her lap, who looks like a malevolent little golem, is the Antichild.Bosch, Adoration of the Magi (detail).
