Tobias and the Angel
(Florence 1502 - 1567)
This work comes from the rich collection of Olimpia Aldobrandini. It depicts the Old Testament episode of Tobias, whose father orders him to collect payment of a credit; he leaves his home accompanied by the archangel Raphael. The elegantly dressed boy is portrayed here together with his celestial escort and his dog, which symbolises loyalty. He shows a large fish, whose gall he used to cure his elderly father’s blindness. This subject was particularly in vogue during the Renaissance and appealed especially to pilgrims, who interpreted it as a sort of talisman against the risks of travelling.
Object details
Inventory
Location
Date
Classification
Period
Medium
Dimensions
Frame
16th-century frame with arabesques on dark ground, 94 x 72.5 x 6.4 cm
Provenance
Rome, collection of Olimpia Aldobrandini, 1682 (Inventory Aldobrandini 1682; Della Pergola 1955); Inventory 1693, room II, no. 56; Inventory 1790, room I, no. 4; Inventario Fidecommissario Borghese 1833, p. 40. Purchased by Italian state, 1902.
Exhibitions
- 2010 - Illegio, Casa delle Esposizioni
Conservation and Diagnostic
- 1906 - Luigi Bartolucci;
- 1913 - Lorenzo Cecconi Principi;
- 1947 - Carlo Matteucci;
- 1972 - Oddo Verdinelli;
- 1976 - Gianluigi Colalucci (frame).
Work not currently exhibited
Commentary
This work entered the Borghese Collection as part of the inheritance of Olimpia Aldobrandini. The inventory of 1682 described it as ‘a painting on panel with Tobias and the Angel, three and three-quarter spans high, with a gilded frame, by Filippo Fiorentino [...]’. Mistaken in the Borghese documentation for the painting with a similar subject by Raffaellino da Reggio (Inv. 1693; Inventario Fidecommissario 1833), the panel was correctly identified in 1891 by Giovanni Piancastelli (1891), who ascribed it to the ‘Florentine school’. Subsequent critics proposed more specific attributions, from Andrea del Sarto (Venturi 1893) to Bronzino (Voss 1920), from Pontormo (Berenson 1938) to the Florentine painter Pier Francesco Foschi (Roberto Longhi 1928), who was previously known as Toschi (Sanminiatelli 1957). Longhi’s proposal was accepted by Paola della Pergola (1959) and by all later scholars (see Coliva 1994; Stefani 2000; Hermann Fiore 2006; Trastulli 2010). Taking his cue from Longhi, Pouncey (1957) compared Tobias’s silhouette with a mirror image visible in a drawing of the crucifixion with saints, (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), which dates to 1545; Parronchi (1968), meanwhile, recognised the same figure in another work by Foschi, The Incredulity of St. Thomas (private collection, Florence).
Regarding the dating of the work, according to Longhi (1959) the painting was executed around 1545; all later critics have been in agreement (della Pergola 1959; Hermann Fiore 2006; Trastulli 2010). At the same time, scholars have noted that the panel betrays the painter’s openness to Flemish painting and the style of Bachiacca (Pinelli 1997; Trastulli 2010). As Federico Trastulli (2010) recently observed, here Foschi plays with the colours of the palette, alternating dark with light tints, a technique that serves to dilate volumes and emphasise the figures.
Versions similar to this painting are held at the Pitti Gallery in Florence (inv. no 292), the Galleria Corsini (Florence, inv. no. 113) and the Public Library of New York.
Antonio Iommelli
Bibliography
- G. Piancastelli, Catalogo dei quadri della Galleria Borghese, in Archivio Galleria Borghese, 1891, p. 103;
- A. Venturi, Il Museo e la Galleria Borghese, Roma 1893, p. 112;
- H. Haberfeld, Piero di Cosimo, Inaugural-Dissertation, Breslau 1900, p. 75;
- B. Berenson, The Central Italian Painters of the Renaissance, New York 1905, p. 137;
- F. Goldschmidt, Pontormo, Rosso e Bronzino. Ein Versuch zur Geschichte der Raumdarstellung mit einem Jndex ihrer Figurenkompositionen, Leipzig 1911, p. 55;
- J. M. Clapp, Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo, His Life and Work, with a Foreword by Frank Jewett Mather Jr., New Haven 1916, pp. 230-231;
- H. Voss, Die Molerei der Spätrenaissance in Rom und Florenz, Berlin 1920, p. 208;
- R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle Gallerie Italiane, I, La R. Galleria Borghese, Roma 1928, p. 194;
- A. Mc Comb, Angelo Bronzino, his Life and Works, Cambridge 1928, p. 120;
- B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago 1938, p. 176;
- O. H. Giglioli, Affreschi inediti di Pier Francesco Foschi, in “Bollettino d'Arte”, XXXII, 1938-1939, pp. 25-31
- B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago 1938, p. 176;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese in Roma, Roma 1951, p. 25;
- R. Longhi, Avvio a Pier Francesco Foschi, in “Paragone”, XLIII, 1953, p. 54;
- M. Pouncey, Five Drawings by Pierfrancesco di Jacopo di Domenico Toschi, in “The Burlington Magazine”, XCIX, 1957, p. 159;
- D. Sanminiatelli, Foschi e non Toschi, in "Paragone", VIII, 1957, pp. 55-57;
- P. della Pergola, La Galleria Borghese. I Dipinti, II, Roma 1959, p. 25, n. 26;
- A. Pinelli, Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi, in “Gazette des Beaux Arts”, LXIX, 1967, pp. 87-108, pp. 87-108;
- A. Parronchi, Due appunti sul Foschi, in “Antichità viva”, VII, 1968, pp. 3, 10;
- A. Coliva, a cura di, La Galleria Borghese, Roma 1994, p. 83;
- R. Nuccetelli, Foschi Pier Francesco, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, XLIX, 1997, pp. 439-442;
- C. Stefani, in P. Moreno, C. Stefani, Galleria Borghese, Milano 2000, p. 239;
- A. Nave, Una proposta di identificazione per il Giallo Fiorentino: Pier Francesco di Jacopo Foschi, in "Notizie da Palazzo Albeni", XXX-XXXI, 2001-2002, pp. 117-138;
- K. Herrmann Fiore, Galleria Borghese Roma scopre un tesoro. Dalla pinacoteca ai depositi un museo che non ha più segreti, San Giuliano Milanese 2006, p. 61;
- F. Trastulli, in Angeli. Volti dell’invisibile, catalogo della mostra (Illegio, Casa delle Esposizioni, 2010), a cura di A. Geretti, S. Castri, Torino 2010, p. 186, n. 8.
