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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileAn elderly Noah leans on a staff as he leads his family out of the towering Ark following the subsiding of the Great Flood. Animals of various species, such as lions and porcupines in the foreground and cattle on the ramp, emerge to repopulate the earth. Above the group, a dove carrying an olive branch flies toward the family, symbolizing the restoration of peace between God and humanity.
In Renaissance natural philosophy and Hermetic thought, Noah was often viewed as a keeper of the 'prisca sapientia' (ancient wisdom) that survived the Deluge. The preservation of the animal species within the Ark served as a foundational narrative for early modern attempts to categorize the natural world and understand the microcosm.
Athanasius Kircher
Kircher's 1675 work 'Arca Noë' provides an exhaustive natural-philosophical and symbolic analysis of the Ark's dimensions and the animals it housed.
Object
Oil on panel
religious
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/person/28220?person=28220
1024 × 783 px
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on March 31, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.