Archangel Raphael with Tobias, Saint Leonard and the Donor Leonardo di Lorenzo Morelli

In 1512 Leonardo di Lorenzo Morelli, a Florentine silk merchant, paid for this altarpiece for his family chapel in the church of Santa Lucia at Settimello, just outside Florence. He chose his saints to suit himself. On the left stands Saint Leonard, his own name saint, holding the fetters of the prisoners he was said to free, and Morelli kneels below him in red. In the centre the archangel Raphael leads the young Tobias by the hand. In the Bible story the angel guided the boy on a long journey and told him to keep the gall of a great fish, which later cured his father's blindness. Here the fish has shrunk to a small thing in Tobias's hand, and a little dog trots at his heels. Florentine merchants, whose sons travelled far on business, had long loved this subject. The Medici acquired the panel in the 1630s. In 1792 it left the Uffizi Tribuna for Vienna in an exchange of paintings between the grand duke of Tuscany and his brother, the emperor.