Landscape with Tobias and the angel, Denis van Alsloot, 1610

by Atelier Liesjes

Tobit or Tobia is a book that is part of the Old Testament in the Catholic and Orthodox tradition as a deuterocanonical book. Most Protestants consider it an apocryphal scripture.Tobit is married to Anna. The father is engaged in burying corpses of (Jewish) people who have fallen after Sanherib's invasion of Judah. Sanherib is king of Assyria, seated at Nineveh where Tobit and Anna also live. He punishes Tobit by plundering all his possessions. Tobit, however, having grown old and blind, has in the past left a small treasure with someone in Media, and now sends his son Tobias to retrieve it. On his journey, Tobias is joined by the archangel Raphael; however, Tobias does not recognise him. Raphael is sent after prayers from both Tobit and Sarah. This Sara was about to be married seven times, but all her suitors were devoured by Asmodeus, a demon, on the night before the wedding. Sara thus prayed God for a new husband, and now one who would not be devoured. Denijs van Alsloot (also known as Denis or Denys van Alsloot) (c. 1570, Mechelen - c. 1626, Brussels) was a southern Dutch painter. From the beginning of the seventeenth century (1600 or 1606), he was also court painter to Albrecht and Isabella. Van Alsloot can be considered a forerunner of modern landscape painting.