Hendrick Goltzius - Lot and His Daughters [1616]

Hendrick Goltzius - Lot and His Daughters [1616], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A seasoned but lusty old man is seated between two naked young women. In the background a city is burning. The man is Lot, seduced by his daughters following the destruction of the city of Sodom. Hendrik Goltzius painted the work in 1616. He used the Bible story to show off his skill as a painter of nudes. The two women have wonderfully soft bodies with full, gentle curves. For an old man, Lot is still remarkably muscular. To accentuate the bodies the artist draped cloth over them in contrasting colours: blue, yellow and red. The poses of Lot and his daughters are perhaps rather artificial, but that was the style of art in the period, Mannerism.

[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on canvas, 140 x 204 cm]