Blinding of Tobit

1609

Pen and brown ink, grey, brown and blue wash,heightened with white

192 × 258 mm

Purchase, 1915

This is a preparatory drawing by Augustin Braun for the first of six engravings by an anonymous engraver, depicting the apocryphal story of Tobit (Tob. 2:1–12). The principal subject of the present composition, which is represented in the right foreground, is Tobit becoming blind when a swallow’s droppings fall into his eye. In addition, episodes leading up to and following the blindness of Tobit are also depicted in the drawing. In the left background, Tobit is shown hosting Israelites on the loggia of a building. Below this scene, he is depicted carrying the body of a dead man into the house, which was thrown out to the marketplace. In the centre, he is burying the body. In the foreground, Anna is shown approaching with a goat, which was given to her by her employer for weaving cloth, while the young Tobias is standing behind his father.