Marten De Vos Tobias is given Sarah's Hand in Marriage by her Father, Raguel Pen and brown ink and wash heightened with white PROVENANCE ENGRAVED De Vos designed six prints depicting scenes from the apocryphal Book of Tobit, a Jewish or Aramaic text referring to events of the Israelite diaspora during the reign of Sargon II, ruler of Assyria in the late eighth century B.C. Drawings for two of the other prints are known, one in the National Gallery of Scotland, the other on the art market, Amsterdam. Both are dated 1582, as here. The present drawing is the finished model for no. 4 in the print series (fig. 1), which illustrates Tobit, ch. 7, vs. 1. The prints themselves are extremely rare, although there is a set in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. Tobit's son, Tobias, is seen arriving at the house of his future father-in-law, Raguel. The scene takes place in Media, an eastern province of the Assyrian empire, to which Tobias has journeyed at the behest of his father to collect a debt. He is accompanied by his faithful dog and later joined by the archangel Raphael, disguised as a young kinsman of Tobias. On the way they catch a 'great fish', and Raphael advises Tobias to keep the heart, gall bladder and liver. In Media they meet the beautiful, young Sarah, whose previous seven husbands have been killed on their wedding night by Ashmodai, demon of lust. On the eve of his own wedding, Tobias is told by the archangel to burn the heart and liver of the fish to drive away the demon. Meanwhile, Sarah's father digs a grave for the young man, convinced he will not survive the night. Surprised to find his son-in-law alive the next morning, Raguel gives a lavish wedding feast in celebration. When Tobias returns to his home town, Ninevah, he uses the gall bladder of the fish to cure his blind father, Tobit, and the archangel Raphael reveals his true identity to Tobit's family. In the present drawing, de Vos has shown several episodes from the story. At the centre are the principal figures of Tobias and Raguel in joyful greeting, Raguel promising his daughter's hand to Tobias, according to the title of the print. To the right are Sarah and her mother with Tobias's dog. The mother is shown again on the left with the archangel Raphael. In the background at the far left, Sarah's father digs Tobias's grave. The wedding feast is seen between the pillars at the centre right. De Vos lived principally by providing designs for engravers and publishers, and indeed was one of Northern Europe's most successful and prolific printmakers in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Among the distinguished artists who collaborated with him or made engravings after his designs were Jan Saedler, Hieronymous Wierix, Jan and Adriaen Collaert, Gerard de Jode - who was the author of the Tobias prints - and his brother Peter de Jode, who also made and designed prints of his own invention |
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