1530
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Lot and His Daughters is a 1530 by Lucas van Leyden, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A dim cave glows with firelight. Two young women sit close to an old man who’s passed out, wine cup tipped over. A third woman kneels, pouring more wine. Outside, a city burns in the distance. The Bible says Lot’s daughters got him drunk to have children with him. This painting makes the cave feel cozy, almost normal—no angels, no lightning. The artist focuses on the quiet moment, not the sin. For more quiet, unsettling scenes from the same time, look up Netherlands, 16th century.
Few Old Testament stories are more morally charged than that of Lot and his daughters. After fleeing the city of Sodom, Lot’s wife disobeyed God and looked back at the city and was turned into a pillar of salt. Believing that they were the last humans on earth, Lot’s two daughters conspired to intoxicate their father with wine to conceive children with him. Lucas van Leyden’s interpretation takes license with the episode’s moral impropriety, doubling down on its erotic content by showing the daughters as naked temptresses and Lot, much younger than described, overwhelmed with desire.
The middle ground of this image depicts Lot leaving behind the salt-pillar figure of his wife with his two daughters trailing behind him. The nakedness of the figures and Lot's dejected posture echo representations of Adam and Eve being expelled from paradise.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Lucas van Leyden (1494 – 8 August 1533), was a Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut. Lucas van Leyden was among the first Dutch exponents of genre painting and was a very accomplished engraver.
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