Lot and his Daughters (Loth et ses filles)
Etienne Delaune French
After Luca Penni Italian
Not on view
Etching with an illustration of a Biblical scene of the Genesis (19, 30-33), in which Lot and his daughters are protagonist. On the first plane, Lot embraces one of his daughters, while she reaches her hand out, holding a glass out for the other daughter to fill it with the contents of an ewer that she holds in front of her body. To their right is a tree with scrolling branches with leaves. In the background, to the left, Sodom stands in fire, large, scrolling frames illustrated above it; Lot's wife can be seen frozen in movement. The erotic spirit of this print, executed after Luca Penni, separates it from the usually proper compositions by Delaune. This same Biblical scene is the subject of three other prints by Delaune: in 1561 in a set of illustrations of the Old Testament, in 1569 in a set of illustrations of the Genesis, and in a set of designs with grotesques. The influence of this composition by Penni is particularly strong in the first two.