The Healing of Tobit

Description

This scene is the moving conclusion of the story of Tobias, the young man at the right. It addresses the themes of family devotion and trust. Tobias’s father sent him on a long journey to retrieve family money. The angel Raphael appeared as a relative, offering the traveler protection against such things as an attack by a huge fish, whose organs Tobias took on Raphael’s advice. Upon his return home, Tobias discovers his father has gone blind, and Raphael advises him to place the fish’s gallbladder on his father’s eyes to cure him. Strozzi depicts the miraculous cure and the moment in which Raphael reveals that he is an angel.

Provenance

Angelo Costa, Genoa (by 1955);; (Harari & Johns, London, and Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.

The Healing of Tobit

Bernardo Strozzi

c. 1625

Accession Number

1993.5

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

Framed: 57.2 x 80 x 10.2 cm (22 1/2 x 31 1/2 x 4 in.); Unframed: 42.7 x 65.5 cm (16 13/16 x 25 13/16 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

John L. Severance Fund and Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund