Artwork
Tobias and the Angel
Tobias and the Angel is an oil painting by the Spanish Baroque Tenebrist artist Eduardo Rosales. It dates from 1858 and is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
In Rosales's composition, the three figures named in the work's identification, Tobias, Raphael, and the fish, are the principal iconographic elements.
The painting illustrates the apocryphal biblical episode of Tobias and the Angel, in which the young Tobias is accompanied on his journey by the Archangel Raphael. According to the Book of Tobit, Raphael disguises himself as a human traveler and guides Tobias, protecting him from harm and instructing him to catch a fish whose organs possess healing properties capable of curing his father's blindness.
In Rosales's composition, the three figures named in the work's identification, Tobias, Raphael, and the fish, are the principal iconographic elements. The fish functions as the symbolic anchor of the narrative, referencing both the miraculous catch and the restorative power later used by Tobias on his father Tobit. Raphael's presence signifies divine protection and guidance operating through an apparently ordinary companion, a recurring theme in Christian art that emphasizes angelic intercession in human affairs.
The work is classified as religious art, and its subject matter draws directly from the Tobit tradition rather than from canonical scripture.
Technique & Style
Tobias and the Angel is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard support for mid-nineteenth-century Spanish religious painting. The work measures 198 cm in height by 118 cm in width, an upright format suited to its figural subject. Its classification as a religious painting aligns with the devotional tradition of depicting the apocryphal journey of Tobias with the archangel Raphael, here rendered in oil-based pigments on a woven canvas ground.
The painting is held in the collection of the Museo del Prado, where its material condition is maintained within the museum's conservation program, though no specific conservation history is documented in the available sources.
History & Provenance
Eduardo Rosales created the oil-on-canvas painting Tobias and the Angel in 1858. The work, which depicts the religious subjects Tobias, the Archangel Raphael, and a fish, was completed by 1860. It is currently held in the collection of the Museo del Prado.
The painting measures 198 cm in height and 118 cm in width. As a religious genre piece, it represents a specific moment in Rosales's career during the late 1850s.
Context
Eduardo Rosales' 1858 oil painting Tobias and the Angel, housed in Madrid's Museo del Prado, exemplifies 19th-century Spanish religious art within his oeuvre. The work depicts the biblical scene of Tobias and the Angel, rendered in oil on canvas measuring 198 by 118 centimeters. As part of the Museo del Prado's collection, it reflects Rosales' academic approach to historical and devotional subjects during a period when Spanish painting was navigating tensions between neoclassical formalism and lingering Romantic sensibilities.
The painting's subject draws from the Book of Tobit, illustrating Tobias' journey with the archangel Raphael, often accompanied by the symbolic fish whose gall is said to cure blindness.
Overview
Created in 1858 by Spanish artist Eduardo Rosales, Tobias and the Angel is an oil painting now part of the Museo del Prado’s holdings. The composition presents a youthful figure accompanied by a celestial attendant on a craggy shoreline, rendered in a manner that recalls the dramatic lighting of the Baroque period.
Artist & collection
Artist
Eduardo Rosales Gallinas (4 November 1836 – 13 September 1873) was a Spanish painter. He was an adherent of the Italian-based art movement known as "Purismo" and specialized in historical scenes.
