Noah: The Eve of the Deluge
John Linnell (British, 1792–1882)
1848
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 168.5 x 242.5 x 9.5 cm (66 5/16 x 95 1/2 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 146 x 221 cm (57 1/2 x 87 in.)
- Culture
- England, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This painting powerfully illustrates changes in taste over time. Before it was even completed, the painting was purchased for the considerable sum of £1,000 by a newly wealthy industrialist who admired John Linnell’s modern approach to religious subjects. In 1913, however, the painting was sold at auction for only £130. Victorian painting had fallen out of favor among collectors who did not appreciate Linnell’s hotly colored landscapes that combined biblical stories and poetry (in this case Milton’s Paradise Lost) with close study of the English landscape. Linnell was also known for financially supporting the destitute and elderly William Blake, whose mesmerizing painting of Saint Matthew is in the museum's collection.
