Room 54

The faces gathered around Christ in Bosch’s Christ Mocked create an uncomfortable closeness. Quentin Massys’s An Old Woman, often called The Ugly Duchess, uses a different kind of exaggeration. Compare the treatment of a face before deciding what response the picture invites. These artists worked in a period of expanding trade, religious conflict and new learning. From 1517, the Reformation divided western Christianity and changed demand for religious images in many cities. Painters also found buyers for portraits, satire and stories drawn from contemporary life. The room’s pictures offer different responses to those conditions, with sharp observation alongside subjects whose meaning remains open to discussion.