Artwork
Tobias and the Angel (The Little Tobias)
Tobias and the Angel (The Little Tobias) is an ink print by the Baroque artist Hendrik Goudt. It dates from 1608 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Hendrik Goudt’s engraving titled *Tobias and the Angel (The Little Tobias)* was produced in 1608 on laid paper. The monochrome print measures the typical size of early seventeenth‑century intaglio works and presents a compact narrative scene rendered in fine black lines.
Subject & Meaning
The image depicts a man bearing a large fish on his shoulder beside a young boy who points upward with a staff, while a dog lies at their feet and horses stand in the distance. The composition alludes to the biblical episode in the Book of Tobit, in which the archangel Raphael guides the youth Tobias in catching a fish that later serves a medicinal purpose.
Technique & Style
Goudt employed the engraving technique, incising lines into a copper plate and transferring the image onto laid paper. Delicate cross‑hatching creates a nuanced play of light and shadow, giving volume to the figures and atmospheric depth to the storm‑clouded sky and rippling lake.
History & Provenance
Created in the early Dutch Golden Age, the print reflects Goudt’s collaboration with contemporaries such as Adam Elsheimer, whose influence is evident in the dramatic lighting. Surviving copies are held in several European collections, documenting the work’s circulation among collectors of religious prints in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Artist & collection
