as revealed in the new," and the manner in which the books of the early Bible were seen to foretell the events of the New Testament was believed to be due to a "unity of inspiration" that was regarded as a basic proof of the truth of Christianity.
By the late sixteenth century, however, the Protestant Reformation had raised interest in the Old Testament as the source of more than isolated examples of 'types' of the Gospel events. Protestants were interested narratives from the Bible, "with emphasis on the drama of individual characters" that carried particular moral lessons that could be easily comprehended by the viewer. Catholic artists of the Counter-Reformation, such as Rubens, drew on the Old Testament for elements that contained such moral themes, but "typological thinking was still alive, and was much used by the Counter-Reformation to defend Catholic dogmas against Protestant attacks." Rubens' The Departure of Lot and His Family from Sodom is a work that accommodates both the moral and the typological approach in its iconography.
The subject of the painting is the departure of Lot and his family from the town of Sodom. They were following a warning from God that he was about to destroy Sodom and other cities. This punishment was imposed on the cities for their general wickedness and for the attempted assault on two angels who were visiting Lot. The angels urged lot to leave with his family. "But he lingered; so the men [i.e., angels] seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, and they brought him forth and set him outside the city." This is the passage that is depicted in the painting. The two angels urge Lot along as he looks back over his shoulder. His wife weeps and his daughters look rather downcast.
The most common representation of the general subject of Lot leaving Sodom centers on the angels' warning not to look back at the cities as God destroyed them. Lot's wife disobeyed and,...