781. RAPHAEL AND TOBIAS.
Florentine School (15th century).
See also (p. xx)
The Hebrew legend of Tobit and his son Tobias (told in the Book of Tobit in the Apocrypha) was a favourite one with the Mediæval Church, and became therefore a traditional subject for painting; see e.g. in the National Gallery, 288, 72, and 48. Tobit, a Jewish exile, having fallen also into poverty, and afterwards becoming blind, prays for death rather than life in noble despair. "To him the angel of all beautiful life (Raphael) is sent, hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all right and happy ways of life" (Fors Clavigera, 1877, p. 31). Here we see Raphael leading the young Tobias into Media, where he was to marry Sara, his rich kinswoman, the daughter of Raguel. But she was haunted by an evil spirit, who had slain her seven husbands, each on their wedding-day, and the angel bade Tobias take the gall of a certain fish, wherewith afterwards to heal his father's blindness, and its heart and liver wherewith to drive away the evil spirit from his bride. Tobias is carrying the fish, Raphael has a small box for the gall. The "rising step" and the "springy motion in his gait" are characteristic of him who was the messenger of heaven, the kindly companion of humanity—
Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven times wedded maid.
Milton: Paradise Lost, v. 221.
For the authorship of this picture, see under 296. "This picture," says a critic who gives both to Verrocchio, "may possibly be not entirely from his hand, but there is no doubt that it is essentially his, and that to his fancy for painting boyhood and opening youth we owe that curious misreading of the story of Tobias, representing him as a young lad instead of a grown man, which is to be found through all the numerous Florentine picture of him by the school of Botticelli, by Piero di Cosimo and the rest" (Times, October 26, 1888).