(Bergen circa 1465–1529 Bruges)
Lot and his Daughters,
oil on panel, 61 x 43 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Private collection, South Germany;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 17 October 2012, lot 507;
where acquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.

The present panel attributed to Jan Provoost depicts the episode of the seduction of Lot by his daughters after the destruction of Sodom (shown in the background), as recounted in the book of Genesis.

The background, with its cool colouring is characteristic of the Bruges master’s pictorial balance, as are the architectural forms of the buildings and the delicate white highlights of the leaves of the trees framing the composition. The facial characteristics of the daughter pouring the wine in the foreground to the left are frequently found in figures attributed to Provoost. The turbaned figure of Lot himself and the manner in which the folds of the drapery of his garment are constructed also exhibit stylistic affinities with Provoost’s other works.

The turquoise colouring of Lot’s headdress and the violet blue of his other daughter’s robe are, however, the signature hues of the Master of the Holy Blood, who trained in Antwerp but settled in Bruges, apparently bringing his influence to bear on the painters of his circle. The brush strokes highlighting the flesh tones of Lot’s daughters, and the broadly painted hands do differ in manner from some of the master’s other works. Borchert presciently notes the confrontation between the relative styles of the two Crucifixions attributed to Provoost, one in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges, and the other in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent.

He compares the execution of the present panel to the side-wings of Provoost’s dismembered triptych showing Death and the Miser, also in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges. Those wings, like the present lot, illustrate Provoost’s late assimilation of elements of the more Mannerist style in vogue at the time of the painting.