Focus on Ship of Fools (painting) and discuss the Dating/provenance.
Dendrochronological study has dated the wood to 1491, and it is tempting to see the painting as a response to Sebastian Brant's Das Narrenschiff or even the illustrations of the first edition of 1493. Another possible source for the ship allegory is the 14th-century Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme by Guillaume de Deguileville, which was printed in Dutch in 1486 (shortly after William Caxton printed it as The Pylgremage of the Sowle in 1483).A Drawing of the Ship of Fools, also in the Louvre, appears to be a later copy.
Dendrochronological studies by Peter Klein have radically altered the provenance of some paintings, for instance the Escorial Crowning with Thorns panel can only have been painted after 1525 and so is not a Bosch original. The same goes for the Rotterdam Marriage feast at Cana panel which can only have been painted after 1553. It has also become clear that the Rotterdam Pedlar tondo, the Paris Ship of Fools panel and the Washington Death of a Miser panel have been painted on wood from the same tree.
The two to eight years between the felling of the tree and  its use as a painting substrate allows The Ship of Fools to be a direct satire of a frontispiece of Sebastian Brant's book.
Le Pèlerinage de l'Âme Drawing of the Ship of Fools Guillaume de Deguileville William Caxton ship allegory Dendrochronological book Louvre Paris