Rembrandt van Rijn, The Blindness of Tobit: The Large Plate
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2002.10 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
Rembrandt van Rijn

The Blindness of Tobit: The Large Plate

1651

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
etching and drypoint
Dimensions
16.3 × 13.2 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-200965

Having sent Tobias to collect a debt, a blind Tobit knocks over his wife’s spinning wheel and gropes for the door in his excitement to see his long-absent son. Rembrandt selectively inked and wiped the plate of this beautiful impression to enhance the scene’s meaning. The dark ink left behind the figure accentuates Tobit’s isolation and makes his beard-the only area of the print without any ink-seem even brighter, dramatizing the father’s anguished expression. Tobit’s shadow is cast by the firelight onto the wall to the far left of the doorway, symbolizing how far he has strayed from his goal…

Provenance

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2002.10

Registry history

  • 1651 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — prints

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