Lot and His Daughters by Francesco Furini

Image: Lot and His Daughters (alternative names: ‘Loth und seine Töchter’ or ‘Lot et ses filles’), a 1640 oil on canvas painting by Italian Baroque painter of Florence Francesco Furini (1600 or 1603-1646), size 123 cm x 120 cm, located at Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

The theme of ‘Lot and His Daughters’ is from the Book of Genesis of the Holy Bible. For some strange reasons, or because of the unusualness of the story itself, this theme has attracted several artists who created works of the same name as this painting, or variants of it. The story goes as follows.

On the advice of the angels, Lot escaped to the mountains with his two daughters, when the god destroyed Gomorrah, Sodom, Zoar and cities of the plain, and lived in a cave. While running away from the city, Lot’s wife looked back, ignoring the premonition of the angels and she was turned into a pillar of salt (known as ‘Lot's Wife’, as seen on Mount Sodom, on the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel now, many people believe). The elder daughter said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth. Come let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father”.

And they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he did not perceive when she lay down or when she rose. The next day the elder daughter told the younger, “I lay yester night with my father. Let us make him drink this night also, and you go and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father”.

Thus were both the daughters of Lot with children by their father. And the firstborn bore a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of Moabites unto this day. And the younger daughter also bore a son, and called his name Ben-am’mi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day. (Excerpts from Chapter 19, Genesis)