The Fire of Sodom, Lot and His Daughters, Flemish Old Master Oil on Panel, Close to Gillis Mostaert, Framed

Sodom burns in the middle distance, its towers and arcades collapsing into flame under a column of pale smoke that rises across the whole upper right of the panel. The light of the fire spreads along the plain and catches the ruins below. In the foreground, sheltered by a mass of rock and a great tree hung with a green cloth, Lot sits with his two daughters. One leans against him with her arm about his shoulders, the other holds a cup and a vessel and turns toward him, the moment from Genesis when the daughters give their father wine. A small dark figure stands alone on the path at the right, between the family and the burning city. The palette moves from the deep browns and greens of the rock and foliage to the reds and yellows of the fire, with the rose of Lot's mantle carrying the warm note forward into the foreground.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a popular subject among Flemish painters in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Artists in Antwerp and Brussels combined landscape painting with biblical narrative, placing small human figures in vast, dramatic settings. The tradition drew on the innovations of Joachim Patinir and Herri met de Bles, who had established the world landscape format in the early 1500s. By the 1590s, painters such as Gillis Mostaert and his circle were producing compact panels that paired carefully observed natural detail with scenes of divine punishment. These works were made for private collectors and often displayed alongside other Old Testament subjects.

The support is oil on wood panel assembled from two plates joined together, standard workshop practice in the Southern Netherlands during this period. The panel carries a horizontal slit at the middle right and small losses to the paint layer, visible in the photographs. It is unsigned and presented in an antique moulded wood frame with a dark patina, showing small gaps and age wear.

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