Blöte-Obbes 1964
“De symboliek van de uil bij Jeroen Bosch” (M. Blöte-Obbes) 1964
[in: Volkskunde, LXV, N.R., 23, I, 1964, pp. 24-26]
[Also mentioned in Gibson 1983: 52 (D45)]
Blöte-Obbes identifies a few owls in Bosch’s paintings. The owls in the Rotterdam Pedlar tondo and in the central panel of the Haywain triptych are little owls, the owl above the dancers in the central panel of the Garden of Delights is a long-eared owl and the owl that is being embraced by a man in the same central panel is a tawny owl. Undoubtedly, Bosch must have been familiar with the catching of birds by means of an owl used as a decoy. Blöte-Obbes also points out some symbolical connotations of specific owl species. Most of them are negative.
[explicit]
