Tobia e l'angelo

For a long time this quiet picture hung under a bigger name. When it entered the Borghese collection in Rome in 1910, it was catalogued as a Titian, and you can see why the confusion held. The bright figure of the angel, the warm Venetian light rising from behind, the soft handling of the landscape all echo Titian, whom Savoldo clearly studied. It was the gallery's director, Giulio Cantalamessa, who reassigned it to Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, a painter from Brescia, and the correction stuck. The story is a plain one from the Old Testament: the angel Raphael, traveling in disguise, tells the young Tobias to seize the fish at his feet. Down in the corner their little dog has curled up to wait.