TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL

Tobias and the Angel

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TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL

by Libby Clay

Teddy Carr chose this work for her provisional docent paper in 1988. Sydney Greaves and Jessica Marten supplied material on the “moving art” of the second floor, and this painting was included. Tobias and the Angel (70.43) has already been “discovered,” so this article will contain additions, not corrections.The journey of Tobias and the Angel has taken them to the newly-installed Herdle Fountain Court, and we are treated to a whole new perspective on Jan Glauber’s painting. The enhanced lighting in the room makes the painting a star rather than an understudy. This would please Marion and Tom Hawks, longtime benefactors and friends of the Gallery. The painting was given in memory of Irene Comfort Jones, Marion’s mother

A beginning to the story of Tobias’s journey can be found in Tobit, one of the Apocryphal books of the Bible, found in the Douay but not in the King James Bible. Tobit was the blind father of Tobias. A debt was owed him, and he sent his son to collect it.  As it was a great distance to travel, Tobias hired a guide who knew the territory. Unknown to Tobias, the guide was the angel Raphael.

At the river Tigris, Tobias caught a fish and they ate it, saving the heart, liver and gall. Upon arriving at their destination, Tobias and Raphael burned the fish’s heart and liver, and the smoke drove away an evil spirit who had caused the debtor’s daughter Sara to murder her seven previous husbands on their wedding nights. Sara’s father was so grateful that he gave Tobias half of his wealth. In this painting we see the successful entourage heading home, where Tobias will apply the fish’s gall to his father’s eyes and cure his blindness.  The debt had been paid, and Raphael has served as both guide and guardian angel. The painting becomes an allegory of redemption and salvation.

Just as Mary Magdalen has her ointment jar, Saint Peter his key and Judith the head of Holofernes, so Tobias is usually represented carrying a fish, accompanied by his dog and the Archangel Raphael. Is he carrying a fish in this painting?

Would the painting be interesting without the figures? Jan (Johannes) Glauber was primarily a landscape painter, and the landscapes he loved to paint were not those of his native Netherlands. Rather, they were of more exotic places--

dramatic, rugged, mountainous Italy or France or Denmark. The figures may have been a means to an end, a well-known story, set not in its original Assyria, but in Italy. It is the river Tiber and Mount Socrate that we see in this painting. In fact, the figures may not have been painted by Glauber at all, but by a much better-known figure and decorative painter, Gérard de Lairesse. It is known that Glauber lived in the Lairesse home in Amsterdam for a time, and they collaborated on paintings, Glauber doing the landscape, Lairesse the figures.This painting may be one of their joint works. Collaboration was common at this time

Glauber was a painter and etcher, born in 1645 in Utrecht. He probably received his first art instruction from his father, as did his brother Jan Gottleib and sister Diana. Johannes also studied with the artist Nicolaes Berchem and was encouraged to paint in the academic classical tradition, as best exemplified by the French artist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). Glauber was sometimes referred to as “the Dutch Poussin.”

There were “laws” for creating a classical landscape: draw a line down the center, have absolute symmetry. If there is a tree on the right, you must have a tree on the left; architecture should be in the center; there must be a foreground, a middle ground and a distance--often a zig-zag; figures, trees and (usually) architecture are verticals, while water, hills and horizon are horizontals. They were all carefully controlled.

Presumably Glauber abhorred the new “realism” or “naturalism” taking place in art in his home country. A society of merchants did not want paintings with religious, mythological or imaginary overtones. They wanted the picturesque details of social and domestic life, familiar objects and outdoor scenes of both town and country.

And so Glauber traveled, observed and painted, in Hamburg and Copenhagen, Lyons and Padua and most of all Rome. He associated himself wholeheartedly with the international, classically-oriented landscape painters. Eventually he returned to Amsterdam, where there was now a demand for “decorator artists,” artists who could paint historical and mythological scenes for the new public buildings, palaces and country homes. Glauber and Lairesse often collaborated on these commissions.

Rika Burnham, of the Metropolitan Museum’s education department, is expert at helping an audience really “see” a painting. She advocates spending time with a painting, enough time to “make it yours.” With Glauber’s Tobias, do you see the progression of colors...browns in the foreground, leading to greens in the middle ground and to blues and grays in the background? Do you see his use of light and shadow? Do you see the winding path, the animals drinking, the servants trying to get them back on the trail? Do you see Tobias and the angel chatting at the head of the line, with the little curly-tailed dog watching intently?  Look even closer. In the dimness of the middle ground are two figures riding side by side. One woman, babe in arms, rides a donkey. Could this be a reference to “The Flight into Egypt?” The other figure is more curious. She is riding an uncooperative camel and she is riding it sidesaddle. Given the uneven gait of a camel, this must have been a rocking ride. Glauber's Tobias is a welcome addition to the Fountain Court and to our tour repertoire.

Source: Germain Bazin, Baroque and Rococo, Oxford University Press, 1964; Teddy Carr, provisional docent paper, 1988; Nancy Norwood, material on Gérard de Lairesse, curatorial files.