The Story
Lot and His Family Leaving Sodom, 1620. Lucas Emil Vorsterman (Flemish, 1595–1675), after Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640). Engraving; platemark: 33 x 39 cm (13 x 15 3/8 in.); sheet: 35.2 x 41.4 cm (13 7/8 x 16 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Louise S. Richards, 1991.266
Created in 1620 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Lucas Emil Vorsterman worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in engraving, measuring Platemark: 33 x 39 cm (13 x 15 3/8 in.); Sheet: 35.2 x 41.4 cm (13 7/8 x 16 5/16 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Lucas Emil Vorsterman builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
