Tobit and Anna with the Kid

English

Tobit and Anna with the Kid: Rembrandt

Price: Price on Request
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of Rembrandt >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Reproduction

Enlarge

Rembrandt Oil Painting - Tobit and Anna with the Kid

Keywords: Tobit, Anna, Kid

Work Overview: Tobit and Anna with the Kid
REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
1626
Oil on panel
h 39.5cm × w 30cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

This painting dates from shortly after Rembrandt had set up as an independent artist in Leiden in 1625.

The subject is taken from the Apocryphal Book of Tobit (Chapter II, vv, 11-14). Tobit was a wealthy, God-fearing Jew, strict in his observance of the Mosaic law, who had lost all his money and been blinded in an accident. To keep them from starving, his wife Anna took in sewing and washing. One day, hearing the bleating of a kid which Anna had been given to supplement her earnings, Tobit falsely accuses her of having stolen it. In return, she upbraids him for his self-righteousness which has brought them to their present plight (this is the scene represented in the picture). Later, however, the couple's fortunes are restored by their son, Tobias, who goes to find the money his father has lost and to marry a rich wife. On the way he meets the Angel Raphael, who instructs him when they come to a river to catch a large fish, the entrails of which are afterwards applied to Tobit's eyes to cure his blindness.

In this work Rembrandt depicts the psychological tension between the two protagonists. The mood of the blind old Tobit suddenly becomes one of suspicion and despair when he wonders how his wife, Anna, has managed to lay hands on a kid. She in turn is baffled by his mistrust.

The space depicted is confined but packed with domestic detail: onions hanging up by the window, a basket on the wall, cooking utensils on the shelves, part of Anna's sewing apparatus glimpsed between the two figures, and, in the foreground, Tobit's stick, his dog and a modest fire.

Such meticulously painted still-life detail had been a characteristic of Netherlandish art since the fifteenth century. However, in contrast to so many examples of its use up to and including the seventeenth century, it appears here to be without ulterior symbolic meaning; the purpose is to give the maximum reality to the events of the story.

Tobit’s blindness has condemned him and his wife to a life of grinding poverty: his once expensive tabard is torn and tattered. When Anna comes home with a kid, a reward for her hard work, Tobit thinks she has stolen it. In desperation, he prays God to grant him a quick death. Anna looks on in bewilderment.

Tobit, who recently had lost his sight, has just suffered his wife's sharp rebuke after he accused her of stealing a goat. In his despair, he thinks it is all because of his sins and those of his ancestors. Here he prays for his suffering to end: "command my spirit to be taken from me, that I may be dissolved, and become earth: for it is profitable for me to die rather than to live [..]". Anna looks on, flabbergasted by the old man's prayers.

Rembrandt was hardly twenty years old when he painted this small but impressive panel. His characteristic contrastive use of light and dark is not yet fully developed, but the onset is clearly visible.

Tobit’s blindness has condemned him and his wife to a life of grinding poverty: his once expensive tabard is torn and tattered. When Anna comes home with a kid, a reward for her hard work, Tobit thinks she has stolen it. In desperation, he prays God to grant him a quick death. Anna looks on in bewilderment.

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report

Rembrandt

Work Overview