Tobias with the Angel and St. Jerome
second half of the 15th c.
tempera and gold on wood
32.8 x 23.9 cm (painted surface)
Inv. 55.178
Neri di Bicci was a very productive, popular minor master in 15th-century Florence. Leading a family workshop that had been active for several generations, he worked for a private clientele for several decades, turning out works that show little change in style and are conservative in taste. This small work, of which several versions and a nearly identical copy survive (Museo Horne, Florence) recounts the biblical story of Tobias who set out on a long trip under the protection of the Archangel Raphael in order to reclaim the deposited family fortune. On the trip, he also found medication for his father’s blindness in the gall of a fish. Raphael had a great cult in Florence; also a confraternity was named after him. According to a widely accepted hypothesis, these small pictures were created as votive pieces: rich merchant families may have ordered them for their sons who went on long business trips and who were thus recommended for the archangel’s protection. An inscription found in a picture with the same subject matter supports this hypothesis: 'Raphael medicinalis mecum sis perpetualis et sicut fuisti cum Thobia semper mecum sis in via' (Healing Raphael, be with me forever; as you have been with Tobias, always be with me on the way) (Giovanni da Piamonte’s work, Museo della Basilica, S. Giovanni Valdarno). In these works, Raphael and Tobias are often accompanied by another saint – here St. Jerome – who may appear as the personal patron saint of the traveller.
D.S.
