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The Fall of the Damned
The Fall of the Damned
Dutch: Val der verdoemden in de hel, De val van de verdoemden, French: La Chute des damnés
Artist	Dirk Bouts
Year	c. 1468
Catalogue	17
Medium	oil on panel
Movement	Early Netherlandish, Primitifs flamands
Dimensions	115 cm × 69,5 cm (45 in × 274 in)
Location	Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille
Accession	P1808 (Louvre inv. RF 1113)
Website	https://pba.lille.fr/Collections/Chefs-d-OEuvre/Moyen-Age-et-Renaissance/La-Chute-des-damnes

The Fall of the Damned (Dutch: De Val van de verdoemden) is an oil on panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Dieric Bouts, completed in 1470. It was produced as the rightmost section of a triptych of a Last Judgment scene commissioned for the town hall of Louvain, Belgium, in 1468. The central panel of the triptych is lost, but the left side panel (or shutter), the Ascension of the Elect, survives along with the Fall of the Damned. The set of images would have drawn narrative inspiration from Genesis 2:10, the Book of Revelation and from the Purgatory of St Patrick, a 14th-century Irish manuscript by Berol telling of Sir Owein's legendary trip to Purgatory.^[1] The Fall has been on permanent loan from the Louvre to the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille,^[2]^[3] where it has been reunited with the Ascension since 1957.^[4]

The triptych was commissioned for the town hall of Louvain in mid-1468, with a contract signed later that year. Records further show that it would have been completed in 1469 and installed in the town hall in 1470.^[5]^[6] "The appearance of the missing central panel is known from a crude copy in the Munich Alte Pinakothek."^[7]^[8]

Writers note how the two outer paintings function as pendants in their striking but harmonious pairing, featuring a green, earthly paradise on the left against the "contrasting shapes, color, figures and their expressions of torment"^[6] in the right panel. There, Hilde Clase writes, "in a volcanic landscape, the damned are sinking into the hell from the weight of their sins" in a "well-balanced composition."^[9]

Further evidence for the relationship of the two works is drawn from the alignment of carpentry and metalwork for hinges and a lock, suggesting the outer panels would have served as shutters over a central panel while in closed position.^[6]

Max Friedländer assigned the panel as "belong[ing] to the master's mature works."^[4]

Bouts evidently took inspiration for the theme and content from the conventional depiction of the Last Judgment, but also the Visio Tnugdali.^[10] Art historians have found sources for Bouts specific choices in the work of Rogier van der Weyden^[6] (for example, his Last Judgment in Beaune), from Hans Memling's treatment of the subject in Gdansk^[10] and from the pictorial tradition of illuminated manuscripts^[9] The composition and mood of Bouts' example were taken up by Hieronymus Bosch in his Fall of the Damned into Hell from 1490 and Simon Marmion's Visions of Tondal from 1475.^[6] The Bouts painting received cleaning, repair, or conservation treatments in 1543, 1628, 1904, 1941, 1951, 1971 and 1997.^[5]

References

^ "Catalogue: La Chute des damnés". Palais de Beaux Arts de Lille. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
^ Butor, Michel (2019). Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (in French). Paris: Flammarion. pp. 96–99. ISBN 9782081450752.
^ Butor, Michel (2011). Dirk Bouts – L'ascension des élus et la chute des damnés. Lille: Editions Invenit. ISBN 978-2-9186-9814-2.
^ ^a ^b Friedländer, Max J. (1968). Early Netherlandish Painting: Dieric Bouts and Joos van Gent. Vol. 3. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff. pp. 21, 63.
^ ^a ^b Smeyers, Katharina (1998). "Bouts' werk voor het Leuvense stadhuis". In Smeyers, Marits (ed.). Dirk Bouts (c.1410–1475)—een Vlaams primitief te Leuven (in Dutch). Leuven: Peeters. pp. 536–542. ISBN 9042906618.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Smeyers, Maurits; Bouts (1998). Dirk Bouts—schilder van de stilte (in Dutch). Leuven: Davidsfonds. p. 74. ISBN 9789061526087.
^ Snyder, James (1996). "Bouts". In Turner, Jane (ed.). Dictionary of Art. London: Macmillan. pp. 592, 593. ISBN 1884446000.
^ "Jüngstes Gericht". Pinakothek Sammlung (in German). Retrieved 19 October 2023.
^ ^a ^b Claes, Hilde (2002). "An Eyckian Prototype for The Fall of the Damned by Dirk Bouts?". In Cardon, Bert (ed.). Als ich can: Liber amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers. Leuven: Peeters. pp. 357–382. ISBN 9042912332.
^ ^a ^b Borchert, Till-Holger (2023). "Cat. 5: Dieric Bouts, Vleugels van Triptiek met het Laaatste Oordell". In Carpreau, Peter (ed.). Dieric Bouts, Beeldenmaker (in Dutch). Veurne: Hannibal Books. pp. 138–149. ISBN 9789464666663.