Mountainous Landscape with Tobias and the Angel

This mountainous landscape serves as the backdrop to the Old Testament story of Tobias and the Angel. Tobias and his guardian Rafael are depicted to the left, en route to find a cure Tobias’s father’s blindness. The artist, however, clearly gave greater prominence to the landscape than to the biblical narrative – a common phenomenon in landscape art of late sixteenth-century, which was slowly developing into an independent genre.

Tobias Verhaecht worked in the tradition of the early Netherlandish landscapists, whose so-called ‘world landscapes’ were characterized by high horizons and vast panoramic views. Especially noticeable is the influence of the Alpine views by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526–69). Verhaecht’s own travels to Italy in the 1590s must also have left a lasting impression, and the imposing landscapes he encountered would have formed an endless source of inspiration.

Highly characteristic of Verhaecht’s drawings are the free, wavering pen lines, which are thickly applied in the foreground and become more scantily towards the back. His rendering of foliage and clouds is equally typical. The curly lines of smoke escaping from the chimney in the center left, and the elongated figures of Tobias and the Angel are some of the features that betray Verhaecht’s mannerist tendencies.

The possibility exists that this sheet served as a preparatory study for a painting, though it is also possible that the drawing, due to its high finish, was considered an artwork in its own right.

A drawing in the State Hermitage in St. Petersburg and a painting, now in Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, show that Verhaecht treated the subject of Tobias and the Angel at least twice more.[1] Could this reference to his biblical namesake have made the story particularly appealing to the artist?





[1] The drawing in St. Petersburg is dated 1617. Cf. Dessins Flamands et Hollandais du dix-septième siècle. Collections de l’Ermitage Leningrad et du Musée Pouchkine, Moscou, [exh. cat.], 1972–73, no. 107 (inv. no. 15090).