Ham Mocking Noah

In 1507 Raphael finished an altarpiece in Perugia showing the dead Christ being carried to his tomb, the body slack and heavy across the bearers' arms. Within a few years drawings of that group had travelled north, and Luini borrowed the figure for something completely different. He made it Noah, drunk.

The story is in Genesis. After the flood Noah planted a vineyard, drank the wine and fell asleep naked in his tent. Two of his sons backed in with a cloak held out behind them so as not to see him. The third, Ham, laughed, and the curse Noah pronounced on waking fell on Ham's line. Up behind the figures the ark sits stranded on the mountain.

This is oil on a wooden panel, roughly 116 by 140 centimetres, and it probably belonged to a longer series on Genesis. It spent years unread in Brera's storerooms, and was cleaned only in 2005, at the expense of a Palladio research centre in Vicenza that wanted it for an exhibition about the Venetian villa. It is still kept in store rather than hung in the galleries.