Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669)
The Angel Departing from the House of Tobit (B. Holl. 43; H 185)
Original etching.
3rd state of IV.
A late 17th century impression, signed and dated 1641 on plate.

During the year 1641, Rembrandt made several etchings involving biblical subjects. The style he used at this time broke new ground for him in that the lines and spaces pointed to a far more liberated technique. The idea of finishing the etching as if a painting was discarded by the artist and a completely new effect was found by the means of more agitated lines.

In this etching Rembrandt created the idea of a very active and dramatic moment. This has been achieved by the shading surrounding the central group being set at angles to each other. The flow of the composition is thereby naturally broken up. The flight of the angel across the face of the control group leaving a path from bottom left to top right completes this effect.

The theme of the etching had been drawn from the Old Testament Book of Tobit. Tobit had been punished for acts of charity towards his own countrymen and was made blind by his grief for being scared to continue those acts after he had incurred the wrath of the local kings. Tobias, his son, was sent to collect money from a distant relative and the Lord sent an angel to guide him. Through his journeys the Angel helps Tobias and returns to Tobit. When the old man meets them at the door, Tobias restores Tobit's sight by means of gall which the Angel had told him to keep. The Angel then tells Tobit that his good works in the town and his courage in the face of the wrath of the kings has caused him to be healed. The family give thanks to the Lord and the Angel departs.

Rembrandt chose this last moment to depict Tobit kneeling with his wife Sarah behind him. Tobias kneels in the centre of the group with his head inclined towards the departing Angel. It was a familiar subject in Dutch art. Rembrandt's master. Pieter Lastman had painted it, also Hercules Seghers had painted Tobias and the Angel. Rembrandt had etched Tobit as a blind man some years before and had made several paintings of Tobit and Anna.

It was his Old Testament work which made Rembrandt so divorced from commercial success in the decades of the 1640s. In fact, it remains some of his greatest work.

Rembrandt's oil painting of the same subject matter (The Archangel Raphael Leaving Tobias' Family, 1637) is kept in the Louvre Museum, Paris.

Measures approx. 15cm x 10cm  excluding the frame

Acquired by current owner at Faustus Galleries, Jermyn Street London on 1st September 1975. Original sales invoice present. Revaluation letter from Faustus Galleries as at 21-07-1977 present. All correspondence letters between current owner and gallery regarding a Rembrandt exhibition organised in Geneve in 1978 present, with also original catalogue of the exhibition.