Tobie conduit par l'ange

Giovanni Antonio Sogliani's Tobie conduit par l'ange (Tobias Led by the Angel), painted around 1515 and now at the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy, illustrates the apocryphal Book of Tobit: the story of young Tobias who travels in the company of the archangel Raphael, disguised as a human companion, to recover money owed to his blind father. The subject was particularly popular in Florence, where it was adopted as the patron story of the guild of apothecaries and doctors; Raphael, the healing angel, was their patron. Sogliani's Florentine training in Lorenzo di Credi's studio gives this work the refined, slightly gentle quality characteristic of his religious paintings.

The angel and Tobias are paired in a walking pose that implies forward movement through a landscape. Sogliani's Florentine technique produces careful contour definition and warm flesh modeling. The archangel's wings are rendered with attention to their luminous, other-worldly quality.