Lot and His Daughters (Orazio Gentileschi, Los Angeles)
Executed in oil on canvas, the large painting depicts the Biblical tale of Lot and his two daughters after the destruction of Sodom.
[2] All three paintings coexisted in the same room in the palace of Domenico Sauli according to a statement by Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, and have a poetic sensual nature about them.
[2] Traced back to a Genoese collection and with the aid of X rays, the painting of Lot and His Daughters acquired by the Getty Museum has been established as the prime version of Gentilschi's composition.
While all three have to do with themes that involve women, two of the paintings incorporate the reclining long figure – Penitent Magdalene and Danaë.
His facial expression is not completely visible to the viewer, however, his eyes are closed and his brows are furrowed citing some form of discomfort that he is having, whether it is a result of his intoxication or his reaction to the sounds of Sodom.
The daughter to the viewer's left seems to protect and shield Lot, while interacting with the scene cut off from the painting.
She seems to eagerly point off into the distance, engaging her sister to look at the destruction that is occurring in Sodom out of sight of the viewer; however, while her body is filled with dynamic motion, her hand lazily points giving a faint reminder of the way Adam's finger is outstretched in the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo (Fig.
This could possibly be attributed to the fact that in the biblical story, Lot and his daughters believed they were going to be the sole survivors of the destruction.
Gentileschi takes more care instilling fear and astonishment in her body and ending with apathy in her hand and facial expression.
Gentileschi takes care to note the folds and creases of the fabric with treatments of shading that indicate the billowy nature of the garment.
The viewer could presume that the garment was in the process of falling off while Lot and his daughters race up the landscape in search of a haven.
Considering her position in the piece, this daughter would have been the closest to the destruction that unfolded in Sodom, and could have caused her to be in a hurried state leading to her disheveled appearance.
[citation needed] A similar treatment of the same subject, also titled Lot and His Daughters, is held in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum in Spain.
Nudity also has a symbolic role in the piece, and there is a noticeable descending order in which the amount of clothing decreases in the figures from left to right.
Gentileschi foreshadows the incestuous relationship that Lot and his daughters will partake in by creating a combination of multiple scenes of the story.
It is interesting that in the Berlin version, the daughter who is pointing is wearing a yellow garment, she is actively engaging towards the danger, leaning her body in closer to the destruction even though she is further away – almost lacking fear of what's happening as she urges her sister to look.
The Getty version where the daughter passionately pointing out engaging towards the destruction is wearing red seems much more fitting and balances the composition much better.
Assumedly, Lot most likely stayed blue as he brings balance and stability to the piece between the push and pull composition of the daughters.
The version in the Berlin Museum also contains a higher use of contrast which is evident in the way the light creates a deep shadow on the garment of the daughter to the left of Lot.
