Lot and his Daughters leaving Sodom

Genesis gives a painter plenty to show here. Sodom burns, Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, and later the daughters make their father drunk so they can have children by him. The subject grew popular after the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church's great reforming council, because it set a taboo inside a moral tale, and many painters made it openly erotic. Around 1614 or 1615 Reni leaves almost all of that out. There is no city and no fire, only a dark ground and three half-length figures in conversation, one daughter pointing a finger, Lot opening his palm in reply. The one hint is the antique vase in the other daughter's arms, probably full of wine. The canvas is first recorded in 1640 in the Palazzo Lancellotti in Rome, beside his Susanna and the Elders, and the National Gallery acquired both in 1844.