Tobias en de engel 1570 - 1629

Antonio Maria Viani created this pen and ink drawing depicting Tobias and the Angel. Although undated, the image is based on the Book of Tobit, a deuterocanonical text, meaning it was included in the Septuagint and Catholic and Orthodox Christian Old Testaments, but excluded from the Hebrew Bible and most Protestant Old Testaments. It's worth remembering that, across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, debates about which texts should be included in the Bible were far from settled, and were often tied up with regional politics. Viani worked in Munich for the Catholic Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria, a staunch counter-reformationist. While the subject matter might seem purely religious, the image also serves as a reminder of the political and institutional pressures that shaped artistic production at the time. As art historians, we look to understand the artwork through the lens of its historical context, drawing on a range of resources to illuminate its meaning.