Workshop of the Master of the Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist, 'Lot's Daughters make their Father drink Wine', about or after 1520

Lot, the nephew of Abraham, lived in Sodom until God destroyed the sinful city: ‘the Lord rained upon Sodom… brimstone and fire from … out of heaven’ (Genesis 19: 24). Forewarned of this, Lot and his daughters fled to a cave in the mountains. His wife was turned to a pillar of salt for looking back at her old home; she is visible in the background on the right. On the left, Sodom and Gomorrah are still burning.

Wanting to preserve the male line of their family, Lot’s daughters decided to get their father drunk in order to sleep with him. Here, the two richly dressed daughters are giving their father bowls of wine in the foreground. The ‘oriental’ or historic dress of the sisters reflects the fashions of about 1520. Their profiles are very distinctive, and both have high, apparently shaved foreheads, which rise in regular curves. Neither has much back to her head. Their noses project from points below their eyes and there is very little space between their chins and their noses.

In these respects they are similar to the women in the Birth of John the Baptist (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) by the Master of the Altarpiece of Saint John the Baptist. Lot’s head is similar to that of Zacharias and other figures in that painting. However, Lot’s Daughters make their Father drink Wine lacks the careful underdrawing of the Rotterdam panels from the Baptist series, and may be attributed to a follower or assistant of the Master.