Year 1510 Artist Bernardino Luini | Location Brera Gallery Created 1510 | |
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Ham Mocking Noah is an early sixteenth century (1510-1515) painting by Bernardino Luini currently in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy.
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Subject
The subject is the Old Testament story of Noah when drunk. Shem and Japhet averted their eyes from their father's nudity, and covered him, but Ham mocked his father. The story is found in Genesis 9.
And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and was uncovered within his tent. And Ham saw the nakedness of his father. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both of their shoulders, and covered the nakedness of their father.
The story is illustrated in many Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salviationis.
It is also illustrated in the Great East Window of York Minster, and the Tudor stained glass of Kings College Chapel - of a very similar date to the painting (tenth window, upper right).
By the medieval period much thought had been given to the story and the Egerton Genesis includes expository material, some of it dating back to Origen. In 1519 both of Martin Luther's sermons dealt with the analogy between Ham mocking Noah and the Jews mocking Christ.
Artist
Bernardino Luini (c. 1480/82 – June 1532) was a North Italian painter from Leonardo's circle. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described to have taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently, many of his works were attributed to Leonardo.