St. John the Evangelist on Patmos

Exiled on the Greek island of Patmos, John looks up from his book as an angel points him to his vision: the Virgin of the Apocalypse, the woman clothed with the sun, glowing in the sky (Revelation 12). His eagle waits beside him, and the wide, luminous landscape could hardly be calmer - this is the lyrical Bosch, worlds from his swarming hells. Yet at the lower right a small insect-demon with a human face tends a little fire, a single thread of menace. Memling staged the same Patmos vision elsewhere in this collection; Bosch makes it a moment of stillness and light.