Just a few days before the opening of the unprecedented exhibition of Hieronymus Bosch in the Netherlands, the Museo del Prado in Madrid cancelled two loans from its collection. A dispute over attribution caused the withdrawal.

Noordbrabants Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch is presenting the retrospective, featuring 17 of 24 surviving Bosch works shown in the artist's hometown, along with new revelations about the artist's oeuvre by Netherlands-based Bosch Research and Conservation Project.

At issue is the Prado's Bosch painting The Cure of Folly that the researchers say was done by Bosch’s workshop or a follower and dates to 1510-20 whereas Prado curators maintain it was painted by Bosch between 1500 and 1510. Another cancelled loan, The Temptation of St Anthony, which the Prado dates to around 1490, is a work by a later follower and from between 1530 and 1540, claim the Dutch researchers.

Infra-red images and high-resolution photography were used by the Dutch researchers.

The Prado released a statement saying that the Dutch reserachers findings were based on “extremely subjective stylistic aspects.”