Heinrich Aldegrever (1501/2-1555/61) - Lot being Seduced by his Daughters

Beautiful impression on laid paper.

Plate 4: Lot and his daughters; Lot embracing one of his daughters, the other standing behind them at right; the burning Sodom in left background with Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt in middle distance; from a series of four engravings. 1555
Engraving


Bibliographic reference:
New Hollstein (German) / The New Hollstein: German engravings, etchings and woodcuts 1400-1700 (15)
Bartsch / Le Peintre graveur (VIII.366.17)

Biography
His family name was Trippenmeker (clog-maker) and his family came from Paderborn. In about 1525 he moved to nearby Soest, where he entered the painter's guild c.1526-7 and became a citizen in 1530. His father was a zealous reformer - he had demanded unsuccessfully to be executed along with sixteen citizens of Paderborn arrested during a religious uprising in 1532 - and it is likely that Heinrich strongly sympathised with the Protestant cause (although his explicit and obviously propagandist engravings of a monk and a nun engaged in sexual activity, Bartsch, 178-9, may have been commissioned). Nothing is recorded of his training, but many of his figures reveal the influence of Antwerp artists of the period, as well as Dürer (whose monogram he a imitated) Lucas van Leyden (q.v) and for his ornament prints, the Italian engraver Zoan Andrea (q.v).

(Source: British Museum)

The story is recounted in Genesis 19: 1–38. Lot, his wife and two daughters were visited by two angels who urged them to flee the city of Sodom before its imminent destruction by God. As they fled, Lot's wife disobeyed the angels' command not to look back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Lot and his daughters took refuge inside a cave near the mountain town of Zoar. Believing that there were no men left alive, the two chaste daughters conspired to get their father drunk with wine and each conceive a child by him in order to continue the family line. The incestuous relations resulted in the birth of Moab and Ben-Ammi, founders of the Moabites and Ammonites.

Condition:
Hinged onto thicker cartridge paper. Missing edge top right. Hole top left