Tobit and Anna with the Kid
Rembrandt·1626
Historical Context
Rembrandt painted Tobit and Anna with the Kid around 1626, one of his earliest known works and a return to the apocryphal Book of Tobit that would remain a significant source throughout his career. The scene depicts the blind Tobit accusing his wife Anna of stealing a kid goat she has received as payment for her weaving work — a moment of domestic conflict in the Book's narrative of faith tested by adversity and restored through divine intervention. Rembrandt's treatment is psychologically acute: Anna's exasperated response to her husband's unjust accusation, and Tobit's blindness that prevents him from seeing the truth, create a scene of quiet domestic pathos. The painting is now at the Rijksmuseum, which holds it alongside several other early Rembrandt works in the national collection. The Book of Tobit subjects — Rembrandt painted multiple scenes from it across his career — had special resonance with Amsterdam's Jewish community, for whom the deuterocanonical text carried more religious authority than it did for Dutch Calvinists.
Technical Analysis
The small panel painting uses warm, candle-like light to illuminate the domestic interior, with the figures of the quarreling couple rendered with the detailed narrative style of Rembrandt's Leiden period.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the domestic quarrel at the heart of the biblical scene — the argument between Tobit and Anna about a borrowed goat made fully human.
- ◆Look at the candle-like light illuminating the interior of the modest household, Rembrandt creating warmth from minimal lighting.
- ◆Observe how the earliest Rembrandt works already show the interest in finding biblical drama in ordinary domestic situations.
- ◆Find the blind Tobit — his affliction visible in his posture and his wife's protective stance — a biblical couple rendered as real elderly people.
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