Tobias and the Angel
Francesco Guardi (Italian, 1712–1793)
1750s
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 70.5 x 90.5 x 6.5 cm (27 3/4 x 35 5/8 x 2 9/16 in.); Unframed: 56.5 x 75.5 cm (22 1/4 x 29 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This series of paintings predominantly tells the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, and each of the canvases treats the interaction of humans and angels. In three works, angels appear to Abraham. However, the narrative of Tobias and the Angel comes from an entirely different book of the Bible. The blind Tobit sends his son Tobias off to collect a sum of money in the distant town of Media, with the angel Raphael accompanying him in disguise as a human. This particular work depicts Raphael overseeing Tobias catching a fish, which would later be used to cure his father's blindness.
