Tobias

Severo Calzetta da Ravenna

early to mid-16th century · Bronze · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

In the Book of Tobit, the blinded Israelite of that name has his eyesight restored after his son Tobias journeys with his dog to the river Tigris, his footsteps guided by the angel Raphael, who tells him to capture a fish, gut it, and use its gall to cure Tobit’s affliction. Severo and/or his shop tells the story in terms of genre: the rustic boy suspends a knapsack from a stick over his back and a stringer from his right hand; originally, separately cast fish, perhaps of copper, probably dangled from it.[1] All these elements plus a cat, not a dog, are present in the only complete example of the composition, an inkwell in the Bargello.[2] In it, Tobias is barefoot and his hair is shaped in waves; ours sports booties and curlier hair. Bertrand Jestaz, who introduced the model as by Severo, also saw that a toddler in much the same tunic with a stick and a pouch, represented by a bronze in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., forms an infantile counterpart to lads of our type, who would be around eight years old. -JDD Footnotes (For key to shortened references see bibliography in Allen, Italian Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022.) 1. The alloy was identified as a brass with some lead and tin and trace impurities. R. Stone/TR, 2016. 2. Jestaz 1972, pp. 76–77, fig. 15. For further discussion and a list of other casts, see De Winter 1986, pp. 104–5, 134 n. 57.

Artist

Severo Calzetta da Ravenna

Date

early to mid-16th century

Medium

Bronze

Culture

Italian, probably Ravenna

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection, 1982