Ship of Fools (painting)

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The Ship of Fools
Hieronymus Bosch, 1490-1500
oil on wood
58 × 33 cm, 22.8 × 13.0 inches
Louvre, Paris

Ship of Fools (painted c. 1490–1500) is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, which shows prodigal humans wasting their lives by playing cards, drinking, flirting, eating, etc. instead of spending it in "useful" ways. The painting is dense in symbolism:

  • The owl in the tree is symbolic of heresy, as is the Muslim crescent on the pink banner that flies from the ship's mast.
  • The lute and bowl of cherries have erotic associations.
  • The people in the water may represent the sins of gluttony or lust.
  • The inverted funnel is symbolic of madness.
  • The large roast bird is a symbol of gluttony. The knife being used to cut it down may be a phallic symbol or it may be symbolic of the sin of anger.
  • A monk and a nun are singing together. This has some erotic overtones (especially with the presence of the aforementioned lute) since men and women in monastic orders were supposed to be separate.


The painting as we see it today is a fragment of a triptych that was cut into many 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 and is exhibited under the title Allegory of Gluttony. The wing on the other side, which has more or less retained its full length, is the Death of the Miser now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The two panels together would have represented the two extremes of prodigiality and miserliness, condemning and caricaturing both.

The painting is oil on wood, measuring 58 x 33 cm (23 x 13"). It is on display in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.

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