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拍品专文
In the same way that depictions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus found popularity in the Mughal court of Emperors Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and Jahangir (r. 1605-27) (see lots 14 and 16 in the current sale), the Biblical story of Tobias and the Angel was no less popular among court artists (for more on this, see the introduction on European subjects in Mughal paintings preceding lot 13).
In the story, the young Tobias is sent by his father to collect a debt, and Raphael, the archangel of healing, disguised in human form, offers to accompany him on the journey. When Tobias goes to wash his feet in the Tigris River, he is confronted by a huge fish. Upon the advice of the Raphael, he catches it and drags it up on the river bank. As a means to survive his journey, he is advised by Raphael to “cut the fish open and take out its gall-bladder, heart, and liver. Keep these with you; they can be used for medicine, but throw away the guts.” Tobias adheres, cooks the fish, eats half of it, and salts the rest to take with him.
Our painting, hitherto unpublished, is brilliantly executed, with strikingly realistic portraiture and the ubiquitous European-inspired landscape typical of Akbar’s court. It stays relatively loyal to the story, except for Tobias’ dotted wings and his shoes, tinted with the same eye-catching blue pigment used for the archangel’s cloak. This iconography and Tobias’ translucent shawl attributes a sense of holy elegance to his figure. The lamb next to the river of oxidised silver, looks remarkably similar to, and may have been inspired by, the wolf on the title page of the Polyglot Bible presented to Akbar by the Jesuit priests in 1580.
Late 16th and early 17th century Mughal painters’ eclectic interpretations of this subject were common, as they would draw on European engravings of different stories and amalgamate freely (Amina Okada, ‘Les peintres moghols et le thème de Tobie et de l'Ange,’ Arts asiatiques, vol.43, 1988, p.5). They could leave out Tobias or place the motif in other contexts, as in two paintings in the Louvre (OA 3619 C (recto) and H (verso)), recently published in Susan Stronge (ed.), The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence, exhibition catalogue London, 2025, cat. 100-101. An example with three angels and no Tobias is in the Chester Beatty Library (Linda York Leach, Mughal and Other Indian Paintings From the Chester Beatty Library, Volume I, London, 1995, cat. 1.239).
Three different interpretations formerly in the Sven Gahlin collection sold at Sotheby’s London, 5 October 2015, lots 3, 10, 19. Amina Okada sees the latter, now in the David Collection (11 / 2015), as the most faithful to the European original, probably serving as the distant model for later variations, such as ours, where Tobias has been given wings, supporting her argument that Mughal artists continued to adapt Mughal interpretations of European art as much as they did European originals (Okada op.cit., pp.8-10; see figs. 3, 5, 7, 9-10 for more examples).
Interestingly, the wings of Raphael in our painting follow the Western style (see for example the contemporary Tobias and the Angel of Adam Elsheimer, Historisches Museum Frankfurt, inv. no. B0789, and its engraved reproduction by Hendrick Goudt, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 28.82.45) while more familiar styles, inspired by the peris in Ottoman and Persian painting, were used in most of the Mughal versions of the subject mentioned above.
In the story, the young Tobias is sent by his father to collect a debt, and Raphael, the archangel of healing, disguised in human form, offers to accompany him on the journey. When Tobias goes to wash his feet in the Tigris River, he is confronted by a huge fish. Upon the advice of the Raphael, he catches it and drags it up on the river bank. As a means to survive his journey, he is advised by Raphael to “cut the fish open and take out its gall-bladder, heart, and liver. Keep these with you; they can be used for medicine, but throw away the guts.” Tobias adheres, cooks the fish, eats half of it, and salts the rest to take with him.
Our painting, hitherto unpublished, is brilliantly executed, with strikingly realistic portraiture and the ubiquitous European-inspired landscape typical of Akbar’s court. It stays relatively loyal to the story, except for Tobias’ dotted wings and his shoes, tinted with the same eye-catching blue pigment used for the archangel’s cloak. This iconography and Tobias’ translucent shawl attributes a sense of holy elegance to his figure. The lamb next to the river of oxidised silver, looks remarkably similar to, and may have been inspired by, the wolf on the title page of the Polyglot Bible presented to Akbar by the Jesuit priests in 1580.
Late 16th and early 17th century Mughal painters’ eclectic interpretations of this subject were common, as they would draw on European engravings of different stories and amalgamate freely (Amina Okada, ‘Les peintres moghols et le thème de Tobie et de l'Ange,’ Arts asiatiques, vol.43, 1988, p.5). They could leave out Tobias or place the motif in other contexts, as in two paintings in the Louvre (OA 3619 C (recto) and H (verso)), recently published in Susan Stronge (ed.), The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence, exhibition catalogue London, 2025, cat. 100-101. An example with three angels and no Tobias is in the Chester Beatty Library (Linda York Leach, Mughal and Other Indian Paintings From the Chester Beatty Library, Volume I, London, 1995, cat. 1.239).
Three different interpretations formerly in the Sven Gahlin collection sold at Sotheby’s London, 5 October 2015, lots 3, 10, 19. Amina Okada sees the latter, now in the David Collection (11 / 2015), as the most faithful to the European original, probably serving as the distant model for later variations, such as ours, where Tobias has been given wings, supporting her argument that Mughal artists continued to adapt Mughal interpretations of European art as much as they did European originals (Okada op.cit., pp.8-10; see figs. 3, 5, 7, 9-10 for more examples).
Interestingly, the wings of Raphael in our painting follow the Western style (see for example the contemporary Tobias and the Angel of Adam Elsheimer, Historisches Museum Frankfurt, inv. no. B0789, and its engraved reproduction by Hendrick Goudt, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 28.82.45) while more familiar styles, inspired by the peris in Ottoman and Persian painting, were used in most of the Mughal versions of the subject mentioned above.