The De Beatis description, only rediscovered by Steppe in the 1960s,[63] cast new light on the commissioning of a work that was previously thought—since it has no central religious image—to be an atypical altarpiece. Many Netherlandish diptychs intended for private use are known, and even a few triptychs, but the Bosch panels are unusually large compared with these and contain no donor portraits. Possibly they were commissioned to celebrate a wedding, as large Italian paintings for private houses frequently were.[69] Nevertheless, The Garden's bold depictions do not rule out a church commission, such was the contemporaneous fervor to warn against immorality.[59] In 1566, the triptych served as the model for a tapestry that hangs in the Escorial monastery near Madrid.[3]
Upon the death of Henry III, the painting passed into the hands of his nephew William the Silent, the founder of the House of Orange-Nassau and leader of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. In 1568, however, the Duke of Alba confiscated the picture and brought it to Spain, where it became the property of one Don Fernando, the Duke’s illegitimate son and the Spanish commander in the Netherlands.[70][71] Phillip II acquired the painting at auction in 1591; two years later he presented it to the Escorial. A contemporaneous description of the transfer records the gift on 8 July 1593[59] of a "painting in oils, with two wings depicting the variety of the world, illustrated with grotesqueries by Hieronymus Bosch, known as 'Del Madroño'".[72] The work passed from the Escorial to the Museo del Prado in 1939,[73] along with other works by Bosch. The triptych is not particularly well-preserved; the paint of the middle panel especially has flaked off around joints in the wood.[59]
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