Tobias and the Angel

1887
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 768
Dewing produced this unusual biblical scene during his first summer in the artists’ colony of Cornish, New Hampshire. Its landscape feature, with flower-strewn fields, evokes the gentle hills and wide horizon of the rural community. Dewing’s haunting painting brings a distinctive approach to an apocryphal biblical story from the Book of Tobit, popular with French painters in the late nineteenth century. It tells of the pilgrimage of Tobit’s son, Tobias, and his angelic guardian, Raphael. The canvas retains its elaborate original frame, designed by Dewing’s close friend, the architect Stanford White.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Tobias and the Angel
  • Artist: Thomas Wilmer Dewing (American, 1851–1938)
  • Date: 1887
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 24 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. (61.3 x 101.9 cm)
  • Credit Line: Gift of Edward D. Adams, 1919
  • Object Number: 19.171.1
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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