''Ship of Fools'' (painted c. 1490–1500) is a painting by

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on o ...

, now in the Musée du

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...

, Paris. Camille Benoit donated it in 1918. The Louvre restored it in 2015. The surviving painting is a fragment of a

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divided ...

that was cut into several parts. ''The Ship of Fools'' was painted on one of the wings of the altarpiece, and is about two-thirds of its original length. The bottom third of the panel belongs to

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

and is exhibited under the title '' Allegory of Gluttony''. The other wing, which has more or less retained its full length, is the ''

Death and the Miser ''Death and the Miser'' (also known at ''Death of the Usurer'') is a Northern Renaissance painting by Hieronymus Bosch produced between 1490 and 1516 in Northern Europe. The piece was originally part of a triptych, but the center piece is missing ...

'', now in the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, Washington, D.C. The two panels together would have represented the two extremes of prodigality and miserliness, condemning and caricaturing both. ''

The Wayfarer ''The Wayfarer'' (or ''The Pedlar'') is an oil on panel painting by Hieronymus Bosch, created ''c.'' 1500. It is currently in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. This painting is round and in diameter. It is one of the fragments of a par ...

''(Rotterdam) was painted on the right panel rear of the triptych. The central panel, if it existed, is unknown.

Dating/provenance

Dendrochronological study has dated the wood to 1491, and it is tempting to see the painting as a response to Sebastian Brant's ''Das Narrenschiff'' or even the illustrations of the first edition of 1493. Another possible source for the ship allegory is the 14th-century ''

Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme ''Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme'' (English: ''The Pilgrimage of the Soul'') is a fourteenth-century poem written in Old French by Guillaume de Deguileville. A modern edition was published by the Roxburghe Club as ''Le Pèlerinage de l’Ame de Guillau ...

'' by

Guillaume de Deguileville Guillaume de Deguileville (1295 - before 1358) was a French Cistercian and writer. His authorship is shown by one acrostic in ''Le Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine'', two in '' Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme'', and one in ''Le Pèlerinage de Jhesucrist''. ...

, which was printed in Dutch in 1486 (shortly after

William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books. His parentage a ...

printed it as ''The Pylgremage of the Sowle'' in 1483). A ', also in the Louvre, appears to be a later copy. Dendrochronological studies by Peter Klein have radically altered the provenance of some paintings, for instance the Escorial ''Crowning with Thorns'' panel can only have been painted after 1525 and so is not a Bosch original. The same goes for the Rotterdam ''Marriage feast at Cana'' panel which can only have been painted after 1553. It has also become clear that the Rotterdam Pedlar tondo, the Paris ''Ship of Fools'' panel and the Washington ''Death of a Miser'' panel have been painted on wood from the same tree. The two to eight years between the felling of the tree and its use as a painting substrate allows ''The Ship of Fools'' to be a direct satire of a frontispiece of Sebastian Brant's

book A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical ...

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ship Of Fools (Painting) Paintings by Hieronymus Bosch Paintings in the Louvre by Dutch, Flemish and German artists 1490s paintings 15th-century allegorical paintings Allegorical paintings by Dutch artists Maritime paintings Musical instruments in art Food and drink paintings