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Archangel Raphael and Tobias

Szymon Czechowicz

Basic information

ID: Ж-5994
Author: Szymon Czechowicz
Name: Archangel Raphael and Tobias
Date of creation: c.1767
Country: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions: 123.5 x 93 cm (height x width)

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: religious
Plot: Old Testament stories
Exposition: Zhovkva Castle

Information about author

Author: Szymon Czechowicz
Author in the original: Szymon Czechowicz
Artist's lifetime: 1689–1775
Country: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Biography: Szymon Czechowicz was born in an impoverished noble family in Krakow on July 28, 1689. He became an orphan at a young age. Thanks to the support of his patron and philanthropist Franciszek Ossolinski, the artist went to Rome, where he studied painting at the Academy of St. Luke under the guidance of Carlo Maratti. The first professional works of the artist were copies after famous painters, such as Rubens, Van Dyck and others; the artist drew upon their iconographic compositions. In 1765, at the invitation of Waclaw Rzewuski, he arrived at Pidhirtsi Castle in the Lviv region; by 1767, Czechowicz created 107 works that became part of the castle interior and a kind of the first museum of the artist. During the last period of his life, Szymon Czechowicz worked in Lithuania and Warsaw, where he opened his own art studio. The painter died on July 21, 1775. He was considered to be one of the best artists of the Baroque era in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among the master's creative legacy, there are portraits and monumental paintings on sacred themes.

Object description

The composition consists of two waist-length figures – an аrchangel Raphael and the Old Testament character Tobias facing each other. The аrchangel is depicted as a young man with wings; he is dressed in white clothes with a yellow belt (?). The image of Tobias (depicted as a young man with a clean-shaven face) is depicted in red clothes and with a large brown fish in his right hand. In the аrchangel's left hand there is an 18th-century pilgrim's staff with a characteristic thickening in its upper part.

Portrayed person

The name of the person portrayed: Tobias, the Old Testament character

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Archangel Raphael and Tobias

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