Art lovers (and everyone else) can literally follow in the footsteps of Hieronymus Bosch from 1 April. The old house of the famous painter on the Markt in Den Bosch will then be opened as the Huis van Bosch museum after a major restoration of a year and a half. Visitors will soon walk on the old wooden floor where Jeroen Bosch used to walk centuries ago.
“You can’t get closer to Jeroen Bosch”, says Jo Timmermans of the Jheronimus Bosch Art Center.
The most famous Bossche resident lived in the house from 1463 to 1481. “Here he lived with his family, he learned to paint there and maybe he even met his future bride here.” His marriage was in any case the reason that Jeroen Bosch left the building on the Market. He moved with his brand new wife to a larger house on the Markt.
Miraculously, the old home of the Jeroen Bosch building survived when the adjacent Pearle eyewear store collapsed in 2016. There was still a shop in the old house, De Kleine Winst, but the condition of the building was downright bad. “If you were in the attic, you could see the sky,” says Jo Timmermans.
Ronald Glaudemans, city historian of Den Bosch, was surprised to discover that ‘gems from the Middle Ages’ were hidden behind the panelling and suspended ceilings. He especially mentions the sixteenth-century spiral staircase, carved by thousands of footsteps, including those of Hieronymus Bosch.
The painter leaves his mark on the entire building. His paintings come to life on the old walls, films tell about Den Bosch from his time. In niches, jesters look down on the visitor. And the attic, now a studio of Jheronimus Bosch Art Centrum, is for the future artist who has yet to learn how to paint.