UK
Collection

Angel and Tobias

Szymon Czechowicz

  • Angel and Tobias 2
  • Angel and Tobias 3
Basic information
ID
Ж-5994
Author
Szymon Czechowicz
Name
Angel and Tobias
Date of creation
c.1767
Country
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Technique
oil painting
Material
canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm)
123.5 x 93
Additionally
Type
painting
Genre
religious painting
Plot
Old Testament stories
Exposition
Zhovkva Castle
Information about author
Author
Szymon Czechowicz
Artist's lifetime
1689–1775
Biography
Szymon Czechowicz was born in an impoverished noble family in Krakow on July 28, 1689. He became an orphan at a young age. Thanks to the support of his patron and philanthropist Franciszek Ossolinski, the artist went to Rome, where he studied painting at the Academy of St. Luke under the guidance of Carlo Maratti. The first professional works of the artist were copies after famous painters, such as Rubens, Van Dyck and others; the artist drew upon their iconographic compositions. In 1765, at the invitation of Waclaw Rzewuski, he arrived at Pidhirtsi Castle in the Lviv region; by 1767, Czechowicz created 107 works that became part of the castle interior and a kind of the first museum of the artist. During the last period of his life, Szymon Czechowicz worked in Lithuania and Warsaw, where he opened his own art studio. The artist died on July 21, 1775. He was considered to be one of the best artists of the Baroque era in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among the artist's creative legacy there are portraits and monumental paintings on sacred themes.
Object description
The composition consists of two waist-length figures of an angel and the Old Testament character Tobias facing each other. The angel is depicted as a young man without wings; he is dressed in white clothes with a yellow belt (?). The image of Tobias (depicted as a young man with a clean-shaven face) is depicted in red clothes and with a large brown fish in his right hand. In the angel's left hand there is an 18th-century pilgrim's staff with a characteristic thickening in its upper part.
Portrayed person
The name of the person portrayed
Tobias, the Old Testament character

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