Lot and his daughters

When this painting appeared on the Florentine art market in 1994, Mary Newcome was cited as having endorsed the attribution to Gioacchino Assereto (as per a written communication of 18 January 1992; see Zennaro, op. cit., p. 525). In her 2011 catalogue raisonné, however, Tiziana Zennaro grouped the work among those of uncertain autograph status, noting formal inconsistencies in the head of Lot and in the handling of the hands. As Zennaro further observes, the pose of the daughter on the left recurs in two additional studio versions — the second ascribable to the so-called Maestro di Monticelli d'Ongina — suggesting that the composition enjoyed a certain popularity within Assereto's immediate circle (ibid.). There certainly must have been a prime original by Assereto himself, perhaps the 'quadro di Lot con le due sue figlie, di Gioacchino Assereto' ('painting of Lot with his two daughters, by Gioacchino Assereto') which was valued by the painter Domenico Piola at the considerable sum of 200 lire in the Genoese house of Marcantonio Grillo, on 22 July 1679 (ibid.).