Lot and his Daughters

The story comes from Genesis. God destroyed the sinful city of Sodom and spared only the righteous Lot and his family. Afterwards Lot's two daughters, afraid they would stay childless because all the men had perished, made their father drunk and seduced him. Goltzius painted it in Haarlem in 1616, and the city still burns behind the trees in the upper corner, a wall of red and orange flame. In front, the daughters have laid out bread, cheese and wine on a white cloth, and Lot, holding a bowl, puts his arm around one of them. Goltzius sets the old man's sunburnt, weathered skin right against the smooth pale bodies of the two young women. A small dog sits at their feet, and on the little table he painted his monogram and the date, HG 1616.