Ham Mocking Noah Ham Mocking Noah Ham Mocking Noah is an early 16th century (1510-1515) painting by Bernardino Luini currently in the Brera Gallery in Milan, Italy. The subject is the Old Testament story of Noah when drunk. Shem and Japheth averted their eyes from their father's nudity, and covered him, but Ham mocked his father. The story is found in Genesis 9. 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
Japheth as having been composed in stages beginning with the time of Solomon, when the Philistines still existed (they vanish from history after the Babylonian conquest of Canaan). However, Genesis 10:14 identifies their ancestor as Ham rather than Japheth. For those who take the genealogies of Genesis to be historically accurate, Japheth is commonly believed to be the father of Europeans. The link between Japheth and the Europeans stems from Genesis 10:5, which states: According to that book, Japheth and his two brothers formed the three major races: William Shakespeare's play "Henry IV, Part II" contains a wry comment about people