Bartholomäus Spranger (1546-1611) - Circle, Lot and his daughters, oil study

This small oil study depicts the story of Lot and his daughters. After fleeing Sodom, where Lot's wife looks back despite a prohibition and freezes into a pillar of salt, Lot lives with his daughters in a cave. Because they cannot find men in the land, they get their father drunk and sleep with him in order to have children. The picture is dominated by the seated nude back of one of the daughters, who is embracing her father with her left arm and reaching backwards into a basket of fruit with her right hand. Behind the daughter's head we see Lot's face with shadowed eyes, hinting at his drunkenness. The other daughter, still dressed in a yellow dress, is pouring wine into her father's drinking bowl, which he is holding while resting his right hand on the daughter's back. The crossed legs are an allusion to sexual intercourse. At the mouth of the cave, Lot's wife can be seen looking frozen at the burning Sodom. Oil on paper pasted on canvas 33.5 × 43.5 . There is an engraving by Jan Harmensz Müller from around 1600 which is attributed by Bartsch (III, p. 284, n. 64) as a work after a painting by Bartholomaeus Spranger