(Fossombrone 1589–1655/9 Pesaro)
Lot and his daughters,
oil on canvas, 147 x 197 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Spain, since the 19th Century

We are grateful to Andrea G. De Marchi for his help in cataloguing the present painting.

The composition of this painting relates to two other versions in Rome, one in the Galleria Borghese (inv. no. 45, see fig. 1) and the other in the Galleria Doria Pamphilj (inv. no. FC 250, see fig. 2). The present painting is larger when compared to these, which respectively measure 143 x 165 cm and 144 x 176.5 cm.

The Galleria Borghese version was commissioned by Marcantonio Borghese in 1617, and it was originally paired with a now lost painting of Jael and Sisera. All three versions of this composition depict the dragon symbol of the Borghese family in the ornamental handle of the precious metal pitcher from which one of Lot’s daughters pours wine.

The characteristic material and technical elements of style and quality confirm the present painting to be an autograph work by Guerrieri, possibly with some studio intervention. It is useful to note that the artist’s output was variable and did not often attain the quality evident in this work, thereby suggesting that the present work is entirely autograph.

This point of precision is of importance because opinions concerning the authorship of the present painting have been applied to the Doria Pamphilj canvas, which is documented in that collection from 1650 (see A. G. De Marchi, Collezione Doria Pamphilj. Catalogo generale dei dipinti, Milan 2016, pp. 224–225). The Doria Pamphilj version has variously been considered both an autograph work (see A. Emiliani and M. Cellini, Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri da Frossombrone, exhibition catalogue, p. 75) as well as a copy, without significant analysis to support this opinion (see E. Fumagalli, in: Giovan Francesco Guerrieri da Frossombrone, exhibition catalogue, ed by M. Cellini and C. Pizzorusso, Venice 1997, cat. no. 9). Others have assigned the Doria Pamphilj version to the circle of the Sienese painter Rutilio Manetti (see B. Nicholson, Caravaggism in Europe, II, Turin 1990, no. 430). The latter inaccuracy, is in De Marchi’s opinion, the result of a misreading of the Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I: La R. Galleria Borghese by Roberto Longhi (1928, re-issued in Saggi e Ricerche 1925–1928, Edizione delle opere complete, II/1, Florence 1967) in which the scholar describes a version of the Borghese Lot and his daughters in the Galleria Corsini, Rome (inv. no. 1236) which is in fact a different work by Rutilio Manetti.