2-722-387 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Abraham Welcoming the Three Angels, 1750s. This series of paintings predominantly tells the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, and each of the canvases treats the interaction of humans and angels. In three works, angels appear to Abraham and, in one particularly dramatic canvas, an angel intercepts Abraham before he sacrifices his own son. However, the narrative of Tobias and the Angel comes from an entirely different book of the Bible. The blind Tobit sends his son Tobias off to collect a sum of money in the distant town of Media, with the angel Raphael accompanying him in disguise as a human. This particular work depicts Raphael overseeing Tobias catching a fish, which would later be used to cure his father's blindness. Though the depiction the stories seems incongruous, the Sacrifice of Isaac and Tobias and the Angels were popular in Italian art between the 1400s and 1600s and both treat fathers and sons as well as obedience inspired by faith.