Tobias and the Angel

Filippino Lippi was still a very young man when he painted this, not long after joining the workshop of Sandro Botticelli in Florence around 1472. The subject was a favourite with the city's merchant families: the boy Tobias walking a dangerous road under the protection of the archangel Raphael, who travels beside him disguised as a companion. Families who sent their own sons off on trading journeys liked to have this pair on the wall. Tobias carries the fish whose organs will cure his blind father, and Raphael holds a small jar for them. A white dog trots along at their feet, a detail lifted straight from the Bible story, where the dog simply comes too.