The Angel Taking Leave of Tobit and His Family

The Archangel Raphael, having cured the blindness of the aged Tobit and made possible the marriage of his son Tobias, has cast off his disguise and revealed himself: the angel rises and departs on a steep diagonal, seen from the back in strong foreshortening, while Tobit and his family kneel and gaze up in wonder before their house, the composition opening at one side onto a clouded landscape. Victors took his subject from the Book of Tobit in the Old Testament Apocrypha, borrowing elements from the treatment of the scene his teacher Rembrandt had painted in 1637; scenes of miraculous mercy were especially beloved of Dutch Protestants, and his careful rendering of costume and strong contrasts of light and shadow give the parting both urgency and warmth. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.