Initial O with Tobit, Tobias, and the Archangel Raphael
Italian, mid-14th century
Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment
Metropolitan Museum of Art, bequest of Gwynne M. Andrews, 31.134.6
In the
Book of Tobit,
This book of the Vulgate Bible continues to be accepted as canonical by the Catholic Church but not by Protestants.
suffering from blindness and anticipating his death Tobit instructs his son Tobiah on righteous living and then tells him to go to a distant land to collect a debt owed to him. Tobiah then finds a guide named "Azariah" and brings him to Tobit. Father and son are unaware that "Azariah" is actually the angel Raphael.
This image pictures the blind Tobit's instructions in Tobit 4:1-23. Although "Azariah" will be brought into the narrative only later in chapter 5, the reader sees him as an angel behind Tobiah, modeling prayerful attention to a father's words of wisdom.
Read more about images of St. Raphael.
Photographed at the Metropolitan by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.