(Naples 1615–1673 Rome)
Tobias and the Angel,
oil on canvas, 48.3 x 36.3 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield;
Private European Collection

We are grateful to Caterina Volpi for confirming the attribution after examining the present painting in the original.

Salvator Rosa repeatedly returned to the subject of Tobias and the Angel, beginning in 1644 with the frescoes at Palazzo Pitti, Florence, and then in other paintings over the course of his career. He may have chosen this biblical story because it allowed for the depiction of a river landscape setting, which was a speciality of the painter’s early years in Naples, and then in Tuscany.

After his journey to Venice in 1662 Rosa painted the Tobias and the Angel conserved in the Musée des Beux Arts at Strasburg (see: C. Volpi, Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) “pittore famoso”, Rome 2014, p.577, n. 298). In subsequent years, he became increasingly disaffected with landscape painting and, as recorded by his many letters to his friend Riccardi, his health deteriorated until he abandoned landscape painting, and gradually reduced the format of his history pictures, limiting himself to few figures, often no more than two, set against a dark ground with a summarily described setting. This gradual process of exhaustion is clearly visible if we compare the series of works representing Tobias and the Angel, beginning with the Strasbourg masterpiece, followed by the painting in a French private collection (see: C. Volpi ibid., p. 559, n. 265); the small and delicate painting in the Louvre (see: C. Volpi ibid., 2014, p. 569, n.285) and finally the present work. This small painting demonstrates an extremely economical approach, such as is to be found in his works of the 1660s such as the David and Goliath in a private collection (see: C.Volpi ibid., 2014, p. 576, n.297). Here the figure of Tobias also recalls the image of Achilles in the painting Achilles and the Centaur Chiron of 1666, which was still in the artist’s house at the time of his death (see: C.Volpi ibid., 2014, p. 582, n.306).

The present painting was engraved in 1767 by R. Earlom and G. Smith for J. Boydell, the publisher of the celebrated A Collection of Prints, Engraved after the Most Capital Paintings in England (issued in 9 volumes from 1769 to 1792) and A Set of Prints Engraved after the Most Capital Paintings in the Collection of Her Imperial Majesty the Emperess of Russia Lately in the Possession of the Earl of Orford at Houghton in Norfolk (issued between 1773 and 1788). At this time the painting belonged to the collection of Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield as reported in the engraving’s inscription: Honorable the Earl of Chesterfield/ Sal. Rosa pinxit/ R. Earlom delin./ Gabl. Smith sculpsit/ John Boydel excudit, London 1767/ 17 inc. x 14 inc.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), was a man of letters and of state, an orator and a politician, whose career was for many years bound to that of his friend Sir Robert Walpole. As a youth, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield undertook a formative journey through Europe. He was successful throughout his courtly, diplomatic and political career (see: B. Heltzel, Chesterfield and the Tradition of the Ideal Gentleman, Chicago 1925; S. Shellabager Lord Chesterfield and His World, New York 1971; A. Quondam, Tre inglesi, l’Italia, il Rinascimento: sondaggi sulla tradizione di un rapporto culturale e affettivo, Naples 2006). Lord Chesterfield communicated to posterity the aesthetic and moral essence of these formative years in his highly successful epistolary volume of Letters to His Son, published in 1774, which greatly contributed to the popularity of the Grand Tour in Great Britain. While Chesterfield House was being built in Mayfair between 1747 and 1752, Chesterfield gathered a collection of paintings over the course of his numerous journeys to Italy, France and Holland. This demonstrates the great refinement of his cultural formation, also seen in the literary contacts he maintained, including Voltaire and Horace Walpole. It was probably through his close contact with the assiduous collector and connoisseur Robert Walpole that Lord Chesterfield developed his artistic taste and curated his collection, which, in addition to the great portraitists of the era, included Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa. The latter was especially well represented in the Walpole collection by a series of paintings today preserved in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg. The Chesterfield collection contained no landscapes by Rosa, but no less than three works of religious subjects: Saint Peter Liberated from Prison (see: C.Volpi ibid., 2014, p. 568, n. 282); Saint John the Baptist Preaching (see: C. Volpi ibid., 2014, p. 523, n.219) and the Tobias and the Angel. All three of these paintings belong to the artist’s late period. It is partially thanks to the diffusion of Boydell’s prints, that Salvator Rosa’s reputation as a figure painter was significantly established in Great Britain during the latter 18th and early 19th centuries.

The painting represents an episode from the book of Tobias (VI:2-9): it tells how Tobias, son of the pious Tobi, was sent by his blind and aging father to their relation Gabael in Media to collect ten gold talents given him on loan. On his journey the archangel Raphael accompanies and protects Tobias. Raphael leads him across the river Tigris, advising him there to catch the fish whose bile would cure his father upon his return home.