Ham Mocking Noah Consequently, many of his works were attributed to Leonardo. 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
Japheth on his death (the descendants of Shem and Ham respectively correspond to the other two, those of the Ptolemies and Seleucids). As the point of the "blessing of Japheth" seems to be that Japheth (a Greek-descended people) and Shem (the Israelites) would rule jointly over Canaan (Palestine). From the 19th century until the late 20th century it was usual to see Japheth as a reference to the Philistines, who shared dominion over Canaan during the pre-monarchic and early monarchic period of Israel's history. This view accorded with earlier understanding of the origin of the Book of Genesis, which was seen