The painting titled The Departure of Lot and His Family from Sodom is ascribed to Peter Paul Rubens by its current owner, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. But most facts about this 85.5" x 96" oil on canvas work have been disputed. Questions of dating and the degree of Rubens' participation in this particular product of his workshop are made even more difficult by the existence of two other, nearly identical, versions. Regardless of the answers to such questions, however, the striking painting is a good example of the way Baroque painters combined their exuberant style and appreciation of physical splendor with a moral message.
The Ringling painting is dated c. 1615-16 by Suida, who also holds that it was "principally painted by the master's own hand." But D'Hulst and Vandenven, who date it around 1613-15, say that it was probably painted "by an assistant in the first place, then retouched by Rubens, especially the flesh parts." The two other versions are at Tokyo in the National Museum of Western Art and at Miami Beach, Florida in the Bass Museum. D'Hulst and Vandenven consider the former to be the work of Rubens' associate Jacob Jordaens and the latter, which they classify as "After Rubens," to be the work of studio assistants only. The Miami Beach version is signed and dated (1625), but Rubens, the most popular painter of his time, had his name placed on many of the works that came directly from his studio without his intervention.
Various elements of the Old Testament had long been important teaching tools for the Church. In the Middle Ages the use of the Old Testament was generally typological in approach. That is, events and persons of the Old Testament were viewed as prefigurations and symbols of the events and persons of the New Testament. David slaying Goliath, for example, was a prefiguration of Christ's triumph over the devil. Whatever "was veiled in the Old Testament w...