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Lot and his Daughters

DESCRIZIONE:
After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the loss of his wife, Lot and his two daughters take shelter in a cave. The daughters, fearing the end of their lineage, conspire to make their father drunk so that they may each conceive a child. The women look back to the devastated cities, not shown but implied by the painter. Gentileschi here returned to a subject he had explored in an earlier painting. Taking a tracing of that work, he painted a near replica, a common practice for him. The first work includes a wine flask, allowing us to see the scene as the aftermath of the daughter's conspiracy. Without it, we are left to speculate: do we see the end of the story, as in the first version, or its beginning? This version was painted in 1622 as a gift for the Duke of Savoy, part of an attempt to win his patronage.

COMMENTI