Show all images on one page	#001919 Title: The Ship of Fools Artist: Kornilova Natalia Size: 30x13.5x9.5 Size (inches): 12x5.25x3.75 Price : $850 SOLD!

This enchanting box was created by established Palekh artist Natalya Kornilova. The artist depicts multiple moments from the intriguing, medieval German poem "Ship of Fools" by Sebastian Brant. The artwork has been painted upon a chest with three upper compartments and one lower drawer within the mid-section of the base.
A German humanist and poet, Sebastian Brant (1457-1521) was initially a lawyer. He also wrote a number of poems in Latin and German in which he set forth his religious and political ideals. In 1948 he published his poem "The Ship of Fools", which won him great popularity. The remainder of his life was relatively uneventful, except that he served in prominent civil positions in his hometown of Strasburg. "Ship of Fools", or "Das Narrenschiff" in German, is a long sermonic, allegorical poem, in which the follies and vices of the time are satirized. All the fools are loaded into a ship bound for Narragonia, the land of fools. But this plot is by no means carried out systematically, and Brant introduces many character descriptions, which do not advance the main idea. This lack of unity enables the poet to discuss all kinds of social, political, and religious conditions. There are a total of one hundred and twelve chapters in which one hundred and ten kinds of fools pass muster. "Das Narrenschiff" enjoyed tremendous popularity in Germany, and was quickly translated into several foreign languages.
In the upper part of the composition Kornilova wrote in gold the quotation from Brant's "Ship of Fools" translated from Russian:

We would all be twice the wiser
If there was wisdom in a drop of wine
Which we drink beyond our strength without restraint