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A winged angel leads a clean-shaven young man across a landscape in this vertical painting. The angel and man nearly fill the composition. They both have pale skin slightly tinged with green, rosy cheeks, copper-blond curly hair, fluttering robes, and halos. Their jaws are rounded, and their full lips closed. They each step forward onto one foot. To our left, the angel’s head turns back with eyes downcast or closed. The angel’s sky-blue robe is gathered up around the waist and falls to the ankles. The neckline and bottom hem are edged with gold writing, and the halo is a gold ring filled in with gold dots. The angel holds a gold vessel or object in the right hand, farther from us, and reaches the other arm slightly back. The man, Tobias, leans forward and reaches one arm to hook wrists with the angel. A scroll curls down from Tobias’s wrist. He tips his head to our left and looks up with large, light brown eyes. He wears a rose-pink robe over a powder-blue tunic. The robe also has gold lettering around the lower hem, and he wears matching pink stockings and shin-high, golden-yellow boots. He carries a fish hanging from a gold thread with his other hand. Gold rays radiate around his head like a starburst. A small, shaggy white dog looks at the ground to our left of the angel’s feet. Some forest-green shrubs and spindly trees with sage-green canopies grow on the far side of the path. Water winds into the distance to meet white buildings along the right edge of the composition. More trees and a steeple are hazy blue in the distance along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the painting. The sky is streaked with white and ice blue.

Filippino Lippi

Tobias and the Angel, c. 1475/1480

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 7

Medium

oil and tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 32.7 x 23.5 cm (12 7/8 x 9 1/4 in.)
overall: 34.45 x 25.4 cm (13 9/16 x 10 in.)

framed: 47.6 x 38.1 x 5.7 cm (18 3/4 x 15 x 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1939.1.229

Artists / Makers

Filippino Lippi (painter) Florentine, 1457 - 1504

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Alexander Barker [c. 1797-1873], London, by 1868;[1] (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19-21 June 1879, 3rd day, no. 498, as by A. Pollaiuolo); (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); presumably Colonel William Cornwallis-West; (his sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 23 April 1887, no. 78, as by Antonio Pollaiuolo);[2] purchased by (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London and New York) for Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-1943] Benson, London and Buckhurst Park, Sussex; sold 1927 with the Benson collection to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York);[3] sold May 1936 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1939 to NGA.

[1] The painting is listed as the property of Alexander Barker in the catalogue of the National Exhibition in Leeds, held in 1868. Since, on the other hand, it is not mentioned by Gustav Waagen in his descriptions of the Barker collection (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols, London, 1854: 2:125; Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857: 71-79), it may have been acquired only after 1857. On Alexander Barker, see John Fleming, "Art Dealing in the Risorgimento. Part 2," The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 917 (August 1979): 505-506.

[2] Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:259 n. 4. The Getty Provenance Index provides the information that the seller, unidentified in the sale catalogue, was presumably Cornwallis-West. Robert Henry Benson's notes on the painting's history (transcript provided in 1976 by his grandson, Peter Wake, and in NGA curatorial files) read: "Bought at Christie's for about 275 Pounds -in the same sale was a Signorelli 'Christ in the House of Simon' (?). I wanted both, but Henry Doyle, then director of the Irish National Gallery came up and proposed that we should not oppose each other and if I would give up bidding for the Signorelli, he would not oppose me for the Filippino - I was miserable at losing the Signorelli until Fairfax Murray got me the 'Madonna of the Casa Tommassi' on a gold ground from Cortona."

[3] The sale of this well-known collection caused an enormous stir; see for example Tancred Borenius, "The Benson Collection," Apollo 6 (1927): 65-70; Frank E. Washburn Freund, "Die Sammlung Benson," Der Cicerone 19 (1927): 495-502.

[4] The Duveen Brothers letter confirming the sale of thirteen paintings and one sculpture, including NGA 1939.1.229, is dated 18 May 1936; the provenance is given as "Benson Coll'n" (copy in NGA curatorial files; Box 474, Folder 5, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2369.

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Barker, Alexander
Benson, Robert Henry and Evelyn Holford
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., P. & D.
Cornwallis-West, William Cornwallis
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.

Exhibition History

1868: National Exhibition of Works of Art, Leeds, 1868, no. 25, as by Antonio Pollaiuolo.

1894: Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1894, no. 156.

1910: Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1910, no. 19.

1919: Exhibition of Florentine Painting before 1500, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1919, no. 25 (no. 25 and pl. XXV in illustrated catalogue published 1920).

1927: Loan Exhibition of the Benson Collection of Old Italian Masters, City of Manchester Art Gallery, 1927, no. 110.

1932: Exhibition of Italian Renaissance Art, Wadsworth Atheneum and Morgan Memorial, Hartford, 1932, no. 3.

1979: Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 98.

2013: Florenz!, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, 2013-2014, no. 95, repro.

Bibliography

1894: Phillips, Claude. “Expositions d’hiver à la Royal Academy et à la New Gallery de Londres.” 1894: 348.

1901: Berenson, Bernard. The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. London, 1901: 57 n. 1, as by Amico di Sandro.

1907: Cust, Lionel. “La Collection de M. R. H. Benson (Londres).” Les Artes 70 (1907): 26.

1907: Gronau, Georg. “Lippi, Filippino.” In Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker, and Hans Vollmer, eds. Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zum Gegenwart. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 23(1929): 269.

1909: Berenson, Bernard. The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance, 3rd ed. London, 1909: 100, as by Amico di Sandro.

1910: Beckerath, Adolf von. “Die Winter-Ausstellungen alter Bilder in London.” Rerpertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 33 (1910): 282, as by Amico di Sandro.

1914: Borenius, Tancred. Catalogue of Italian Pictures at 16 South Street, Park Lane, London and Buckhurst in Sussex Collected by Robert and Evelyn Benson. London, 1914: no. 32.

1919: Phillips, Claude. “Florentine Art before 1500.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 34 (1919): 216.

1921: Graves, Algernon. Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century. 3 vols. London, 1918-1923: 2(1921):236.

1923: Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 12(1931):318.

1933: Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 2:pl. 261.

1935: Scharf, Alfred. Filippino Lippi. Vienna, 1935: 15, 106.

1938: Berenson, Bernard. The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. 3 vols. Chicago, 1938: 2:240, 381. 3:fig. 240, as by Amico di Sandro.

1938: Neilson, Katharine B. Filippino Lippi, a Critical Study. New York, 1938: 23, 35.

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 107, repro.

1941: Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 106, no. 340.

1941: Richter, George Martin. "The New National Gallery in Washington." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 78 (June 1941): 177.

1941: "World Masterpieces Lend Supreme Distinction to National Gallery of Art." The Washington Star (16 March 1941): F6.

1942: Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 246, repro. 129.

1944: Lugt, Fritz. “Man and Angel. II.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 25, no. 1 (1944): 325.

1945: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 57, repro.

1950: Scharf, Alfred. Filippino Lippi, 2nd ed. Vienna, 1950: 11, 53.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 44-47, repro.

1952: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 30, color repro.

1957: Berti, Luciano, and Umberto Baldini. Filippino Lippi. Florence, 1957: 20, 72.

1958: Gamba, Fiammetta. Filippino Lippi nella storia della critica. Florence, 1958: 104 n. 45, pl. 1.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 71, repro.

1962: Faison, Lane. “A Polychromed Lindenwood Guardian Angel.” Wadsworth Athenaeum Bulletin 5, no. 11 (1962): 12.

1963: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:111.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 300, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 75.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:52, color repro.

1966: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 135, fig. 369.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 66, repro.

1969: Boskovits, Miklós. Toskanische Frührenaissance Tafelbilder. Budapest, 1969: under cat. 45.

1972: Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 106, 645.

1973: Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 79.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 194, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:258-259; 2:pl. 175.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 97, no. 57, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 228, repro.

1987: Horne, Herbert. H. Alessandro Filipepi commonly called Sandro Botticelli, Painter of Florence. Appendix III: Catalogue of the works of Sandro Botticelli, and of his disciples and imitators, together with notices of those erroneously attributed to him in the public and private collections of Europe and America. Ed. Caterina Caneva. Florence, 1987: 26, as by Amico di Sandro.

1991: Berti, Luciano, and Umberto Baldini. Filippino Lippi, 2nd ed. Florence, 1991: 43, 53, 158-159, repro.

1991: Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 43.

1992: Hall, Nicholas H. J., ed. Colnaghi in America: A Survey to Commemorate the First Decade of Colnaghi. New York, London, and Paris, 1992: 44.

1995: Zambrano, Patrizia. “L’eredità di Filippo: qualche indicazione sui primi passi di Filippino Lippi nella bottega paterna.” In Maria Pia Mannini, ed. La Natività di Filippo Lippi: restauro saggi ricerche. Pisa and Prato, 1995: 44, fig. 17.

1996: Bradshaw, Marilyn. “Lippi, Filippino.” In Jane Turner, ed. The Dictionary of Art. London, 1996: 19:446.

1997: Montefiore, Charles Sebag. “R. H. Benson as collector.” In Jehanne Wake. Kleinwort, Benson. A History of Two Families in Banking. Oxford, 1997: 484-485.

1997: Nelson, Jonathan. “An Introduction to the Life and Styles of Filippino Lippi.” In George R. Goldner and Carmen Bambach, eds. The Drawings of Filippino Lippi and his Circle. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997: 11.

1998: Gibson, Sarah S. and Alicia Craig Faxon. "Journey/Flight." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:445.

1999: Rubin, Patricia Lee, and Alison Wright with contributions by Nicholas Penny. Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London, 1999: 168.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 383-387, color repro.

2004: Arasse, Daniel, et al, eds. Botticelli and Filippino: Passion and Grace in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painting. Exh. cat. Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 2004: 172, 176.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 19, no. 13, color repros.

2004: Zambrano, Patrizia, and Jonathan Katz Nelson. Filippino Lippi. Milan, 2004: 20, 91, 164-166, 169, 318-319, 320, 325, cat. 12, figs. 57, 157.

2009: Philpot, Elizabeth. "Old Testament Apocryphal Images in European Art." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Gothenburg, 2009: 148-149, color pl. 4.

2017: Serres, Karen. "Duveen's Italian framemaker, Ferruccio Vannoni." The Burlington Magazine 159, no. 1370 (May 2017): 373 n. 40.

2020: O’Malley, Michelle. “Filippino in Botticelli’s Workshop.” In Paula Nuttall, Geoffrey Nuttall, and Michael W. Kwakkelstein eds. Filippino Lippi: Beauty, Invention and Intelligence. Leiden, 2020: 57.

2022: Nelson, Jonathan K. Filippino Lippi: An Abundance of Invention. London, 2022: 44-45.