Tobias and the Angel

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Cristofano Allori was born and died in Florence. His most famous work is ‘Judith with the Head of Holofernes’ in the Pitti Palace, which is influenced by the dark, dramatic paintings of Caravaggio in Rome. The painting in the Government Art Collection of ‘Tobias and the Angel’, in which the figures are strikingly highlighted against a dark background, may likewise be indebted (albeit probably indirectly) to Caravaggio’s style.
Giovanni Bilivert, painter and draughtsman, was born in Florence. He may have studied under Alessandro Casolani (1552/3-1607) in Siena, before entering the studio of Lodovico Cardi in Florence. In 1604, he followed Cardi to Rome, where he remained for almost three years. He enrolled at the Accademia del Disegno, Florence, five years later and was employed by Cosimo II de' Medici from 1611 until the Duke's death in 1621. Bilivert died in Florence in 1644. His works are in the collections of the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Places

Subjects

biblical, Renaissance, wing, unidentifiable fish, debt collector, healing, blindness, Apocrypha, angel, miracle

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Florentine 17th century unknown
Cristofano, (Circle) Allori
Giovanni, (Circle) Bilivert (1585 - 1644)

Title

Tobias and the Angel

Date

1620-1640

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 96.50 cm, width: 80.80 cm

Acquisition

Presented by Mrs M A Clayton-Jones, June 1952

Inscription

none

GAC number

1720