Lot and His Daughters: Why Baroque Artists Loved This Bible Story

Look at this painting. Two beautiful young women, an older man who is clearly having a little too much wine, and everybody seems to be getting… very comfortable. I came across this painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. At first I basically thought, okay, baroque painting, beautiful bodies, drama, wine, very Rubens. Then I read the title, Lot and His Daughters. And that made me stop. Lot? As in the Bible? And those are his daughters? Then I realized this wasn't some strange one-off. There is another enormous painting of Lot and His Daughters hanging in the National Gallery in London. And once you start looking, they are everywhere. Different painters, different countries, different compositions. But somehow we keep getting the same ingredients, an old man, two young women, a lot of wine, and, depending on the artist, a rather flexible attitude toward clothing. So naturally, I had questions. First, what on earth actually happens in this story? And second, why were European artists so obsessed with painting it? To answer that, we need to rewind the clock. And I mean, really rewind it. This story comes from Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Bible, or, if you grew up Christian, the first book of the Old Testament. It imagines a world in the ancient Near East, traditionally placed around the early second millennium BCE, roughly 4,000 years ago. Exactly when Abraham lived, or whether we can identify him as a historical individual at all, archaeology can't really tell us. So think of this as the traditional biblical setting, rather than a verified biography. At the center of this world is a man first called Abram, and later Abraham, one of the great patriarchs of the Bible. Traveling with him is his nephew, Lot. And were Abraham and Lot Jewish? Not exactly. At least, not in the later historical sense of that word. Genesis presents Abraham as an ancestor of the people who would eventually become the Israelites. Abraham leads to Isaac. Isaac leads to Jacob, who is also called Israel. And from Jacob come the tribes of Israel. Now, Abraham and Lot were doing very well. Maybe a little too well. Their wealth wasn't sitting in a bank account. It was walking around on four legs. Sheep, goats, cattle, pack animals, along with servants, families, tents, and enormous traveling households. Eventually, there was simply too much of everything. The land couldn't comfortably support both groups, and arguments started breaking out between their herdsmen. So Abraham proposed a very practical solution. They would separate. And Abraham let Lot choose first. Lot looked out across the land and saw exactly what most of us would probably choose. Water, fertile fields, green valleys, prosperous cities. So Lot took the better-looking option and headed towards Sodom. At first, Genesis says Lot lived near Sodom. Eventually, near became inside. He settled there with his wife and daughters and became part of the city. Unfortunately, Sodom already had a rather spectacular reputation for wickedness. Years later, Abraham receives three mysterious visitors. During their conversation, he learns that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah has become so great that destruction is coming. Two of the visitors begin walking towards Sodom. Abraham stays behind because his nephew is still down there. So Abraham starts negotiating. What if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom? Would the entire city still be destroyed? No. What about 45? 40? 30? 20? Finally, Abraham gets the number all the way down to 10. If 10 righteous people can be found, the city will be spared. Meanwhile, the other two visitors arrive in Sodom. Lot sees them and insists that they spend the night in his house. And before that night is over, we find out why. A mob surrounds Lot's home and demands that he hand over his guests. The confrontation becomes violent. The visitors pull Lot back inside, strike the attackers with blindness, and finally reveal why they have come. Sodom is going to be destroyed. Lot needs to get his family out. Immediately. Lot rushes to warn the men who are supposed to marry his daughters. He tells them the city is about to be destroyed. They don't run. They don't even believe him. Genesis says they think he's joking. Morning comes. And somehow, Lot is still hesitating. So the visitors stop asking. They literally take Lot, his wife, and his two daughters by the hands and lead them out of Sodom. Then comes one very specific warning. Escape for your lives. Don't stop in the valley. And whatever you do, do not look back. So they run. Lot keeps moving. His daughters stay close. But his wife begins to fall behind. And then, she stops. She turns towards Sodom. Maybe she's thinking about her home. Maybe about the people she left behind. Maybe she simply cannot resist looking at something unimaginable happening behind her. Genesis never tells us why. It tells us only what she does. She looks back. And according to Genesis, she becomes a pillar of salt. There is nothing Lot or his daughters can do. Behind them, Sodom burns. So the three survivors keep moving. Lot and his daughters eventually reach the small town of Zoar, which had been spared so they would have somewhere to escape. But Lot becomes afraid to remain there. His wife is dead. Their home is gone. The men his daughters were expected to marry are gone. And the entire world they knew has effectively disappeared. So the three of them leave again. This time, they climb into the mountains. Higher. Farther away. Until eventually, Lot and his two daughters take shelter inside a cave. And now, we have finally arrived at the part all those painters were interested in. Living in isolation, the daughters begin thinking about their future. Their mother is dead. The men they were supposed to marry are gone. And from their perspective, there appears to be no one left for them to marry or to continue their family line. So the older daughter turns to her sister with a plan. A plan that somehow manages to make an already catastrophic situation considerably worse. They are going to get their father drunk. Very drunk. And then, they are going to have children with him. On the first night, they give Lot wine until he becomes extremely intoxicated. The older daughter sleeps with him. And Genesis goes out of its way to say that Lot does not know when she lies down or when she gets up. The following night, they do it again. This time with the younger daughter. And once again, the text emphasizes that Lot is so intoxicated that he does not know what happened. Eventually, however, the consequences become impossible to hide. Both daughters are pregnant. And this tiny surviving family, already carrying everything they lost in Sodom, is now forced to live with what happened inside that cave. There is no neat resolution. The story simply keeps going. Both women eventually give birth to sons. The older daughter names hers Moab. The younger names hers Ben-Ami. Genesis identifies them as the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites. Two neighboring peoples who will appear repeatedly later in the biblical story. And that's it. That's how the story ends. Cities destroyed by fire, a woman turned into salt, two daughters, one cave, and two very complicated pregnancies. So now, we can finally go back to those paintings. Because once you know the story, look at the paintings again. Suddenly, every detail means something. The wine isn't just decoration, it's the mechanism of the entire plot. Those aren't anonymous young women, they're Lot's daughters. And when you see a burning city glowing somewhere in the background, that's Sodom. And for a Baroque painter, this story was almost absurdly useful. Sex, alcohol, violence, divine punishment, fire, moral danger, beautiful bodies, psychological tension, basically the Baroque starter pack. But there was something else that made this story especially useful. Biblical legitimacy. The scandalous material was already sitting there, in Genesis. So an artist could paint two young women seducing an intoxicated older man, sometimes with an extraordinary amount of exposed flesh, while still producing a respectable religious and historical subject. Because it's from the Bible. And that is where the loophole comes in. But saying these paintings existed only because artists wanted an excuse to paint sexy women would be too simple. Different artists treated the story very differently. Some versions are openly sensual. Others are disturbing. Others are tragic or moralizing. And some barely eroticize the daughters at all. The story also came with perfectly respectable moral lessons. Drunkenness, loss of self-control, sexual temptation, and, very much reflecting the gender politics of the period, warnings about supposedly dangerous female seduction. But visually, this story was almost tailor-made for Baroque painting. Three bodies packed tightly together. Youth against old age. Light against darkness. A cup of wine passing between hands. Intimacy and danger happening at exactly the same time. And, if the painter really wanted to turn up the drama? An entire city burning in the distance. I mean, come on. Baroque painters never stood a chance. And that's why the painting I saw at the Met looks completely different to me now. When I first stopped in front of it, I thought I was looking at a dramatic Baroque drinking scene. Instead, I had accidentally stumbled into a 4,000-year-old Biblical family disaster that eventually became one of European art's most convenient combinations of morality and sex appeal. Apparently, if the story came from Genesis, you could get away with quite a lot.