Prado Museum furious over Dutch museum’s Hieronymus Bosch replica claim

The Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain decided not to lend two paintings to the Noordbrabants Museum in s-Hertogenbosch for its Hieronymus Bosch exhibition. The Prado Museum decided to go back on its agreement to lend the two paintings because it is furious that Dutch experts judged them to be replica's, instead of works done by Bosch himself, the Volkskrant reports. A spokesperson for the Spanish national museum told The Art Newspaper that the Prado is irritated by the Dutch experts claims that the two works - The Temptation of Saint Anthony and Cutting the Stone - were not painted by the master artist, but by one of his followers. According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, the museum found out about the Dutch experts' opinion in a television documentary. "Given that they would have traveled to the Netherlands while they were being doubted, we thought it better not to lend them. We prefer that the matter stop here instead of our works being publicly denied at an exhibition", a Prado employee said to the newspaper. The Prado museum believes that the only important thing to take away from this affair is that the museum The Haywain triptych to the Noordbrabants Museum "without any objection". Charles de Mooi, director of the Noordbrabants Museum, told the Volkskrant that he regrets the Prado's decision not to send the two paintings. He added that his museum will still lend the Prado two paintings and two altar shutters for its Bosch exhibit. "We promised them after all."