LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS
Venetian school of the late 16th century, follower of Paolo Cagliari called Veronese.
Oil painting on canvas, cleaned and re-lined, examined under a black lamp; some restorations are evident, fortunately not detrimental, the faces are well preserved and not restored.
A proper cleaning and restoration would make the painting more legible and valuable.
Measurements cm: h. 140 x 202
The old father, already confused by alcohol, his face bowed and resigned as if he already understood his fate, still extends his hand with the bowl to have more wine. One of the two sisters, approaching gently, supports the father's hand, the other is preparing with the flask to pour more wine.
In Veronese's works, a figure is often represented in the foreground, with clothes of a full drapery in bright colors of orange-yellow and gold-green, showing its back to the observer. The female figures are always plump and the clothes often leave the shoulders and a breast bare.
BIBLICAL NOTES
Lot, Abraham's nephew, was the only wise man in Sodom, so much so that the angels of the Lord, hosted in his house, tell him to leave the city with his family but never to look back; but Lot's wife, driven by curiosity, turns to see the punishment of Sodom and is turned into a statue of salt that dissolves in the wind.
So far the known part of the story, the lesser known part is that Lot and his daughters arrive in an uninhabited territory (it is not clear why they could not join Abraham's tribe, but the Bible is like that...), where there were no men; the daughters want to have children to continue the genealogy and therefore one night they get Lot drunk and join with him (in short, everyone is scandalized by Aristophanes' comedies, but the first orgy, even incestuous, is in the Bible); the sons who were born from this union are Moab and Ammon.
The story has a purpose, it certainly intended to show the impure origin of two peoples, the Moabites and the Ammonites, traditional enemies of Israel.
