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)

Lot and his daughters by Hendrick Goltzius

Image: Lot and his daughters (1616), oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617), size 140 cm x 204 cm, located at Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. A note with this digitally altered picture explains, ‘In the left, Lot is sleeping, after being seduced by his daughters. The fox behind the tree symbolizes female cunning. In the background in front of the burning city is the pillar of salt, Lots wife.’ The pillar of salt referred here is the formation of a rock figure on Mount Sodom, Israel, as you can see in the photo Lot’s Wife Pillar on Mount Sodom, Israel – CLICK to view.

As the story in the Bible goes (Genesis, read in the link above), without his wife, who defied the angels’ advice and looked back on Sodom and was turned into a salt pillar, Lot left Zoar. He retired with his two daughters to a cave in a nearby mountain. Lot's daughters, who secretly took the responsibility to bear children to preserve Lot's family line, got their father drunk enough to have sexual intercourse with them on two consecutive nights. In turns, each daughter had sex with her father, each becoming pregnant (In Genesis 19:30-38). The first son was named Moab, literally meaning ‘from the father’, who became the patriarch of the nation, Moab. The second son was Ammon (son of my people), who became the patriarch of the nation of Ammon.

Lot's Wife Pillar on Mount Sodom, Israel

Mount Sodom, a hill along the southwestern part of the Dead Sea in Israel, is made almost entirely of halite (rock salt). It is about 5 miles long, 3 miles wide, 742 feet above the Dead Sea water level, and yet 557 feet below sea level. Weathering separated sometimes portions of rock formations. One such separate pillar is known as ‘Lot's Wife’, because the pillar resembles a woman wearing a cloak, with reference to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as mentioned in the Bible.

The story of Lot is in chapters 11-14 and 19 of the Book of Genesis in the Bible. In Genesis 19, when God plans to destroy the five cities, he sends angels to the city of Sodom where they meet Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and the son of Abraham's brother Haran (Genesis 11:27). Lot prays to the angels to spend the night in his house, against their wish to spend the night in the city street, and they agree to stay with Lot. By now all the men of Sodom surround Lot's house to ‘know’ (traditionally, carnal knowledge) the angels. Lot offers the men his daughters instead, who, he claims, are virgins, but the men are not interested in Lot’s daughters.

The angels forewarn Lot of the disaster about to happen and ask Lot, his wife, sons-in-law, and daughters to escape from the place. The sons-in-law ignore the warning. So, the angels forcibly take Lot, his wife, and his daughters out of their house, saying, "Save yourselves with all haste. Look not behind you. Get as fast as you are able to the mountain, unless you be involved in the calamity of the city." Lot entreats the angels, who consent that he might retire to Zoar, which was one of the five doomed cities but was spared because of Lot’s desire to seek refuge there. His wife, looked back on Sodom, and she was turned into a pillar of salt, which is purported to be Lot's Wife, as you see in the picture above.

Lot and his daughters by Giovanni Battista Lama

Image: Lot and his daughters, oil painting by Italian painter of the Baroque period Giovanni Battista Lama (1673-1748).

The painting shows the seduction of Lot by his daughters after making him drunk, as described in the Book of Genesis in the Bible. This theme has attracted many painters and artists, as Lot’s story is one of the weirdest.