The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobit
- Catalog
- WD-D11
- Artist
- Willem Drost
- Year
- c. 1655–60
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, rubbed with the finger, corrections in opaque white
- Dimensions
- 19.3 × 24.5 cm
- Location
- Pierpont Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Description
A drawing depicting the apocryphal story from Tobit 12:20-21, where the angel Raphael departs from the family of Tobit. The scene shows the family's awe and wonder at the angel's ascension.
Analysis
Attributed to Drost (Morgan Library I, 197), this drawing was long catalogued as Rembrandt before reattribution. Provenance traces through Jonathan Richardson, Ingham Forster, Henry Reveley, Sir J.C. Robinson, and Charles Fairfax Murray before Pierpont Morgan purchased it in 1909. The pen work, with broad diagonal hatching and rubbed ink passages, is characteristic of Drost's drawing style as seen in his Bremen and Harvard sheets. Published in the Morgan's catalog of Dutch drawings (Turner, 2006, cat. 62) and exhibited at the Fogg and Morgan in 1960.
Historical Context
The First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654) raged during this period, with naval battles at Portland, the Gabbard, and Scheveningen where Admiral Maarten Tromp was killed. The Delft Thunderclap of 1654 devastated the city and killed Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s most gifted former pupil. Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated and converted to Catholicism in Rome. Blaise Pascal experienced his conversion to Jansenism. Drost worked independently in Amsterdam, competing in a vibrant art market while Rembrandt began his descent into bankruptcy.