Tobit burying the dead

Etching, circa 1647-51, signed above dog at left 'Gio Benedetto Castiglione P' and lower margin “G. B. C.”.

The pious Tobit watches as a corpse is secretly prepared for burial at dead of night during the Jewish exile in Assyria. The only source of light is a torch so bright that a bystander has to cover his eyes. Castiglione’s night print is far lighter that those of his Dutch contemporaries. Instead of making his print dark, he uses a very loose drawing style. This hard-to-read style is effective because the viewer slowly picks out details from the tangle of lines in a process that parallels our vision as our eyes adjust to darkness.

“The figure of Tobit appears, with some variations, in a drawing attributed to Castiglione in the Parson Collection, London. The drawing is in the same direction as the etching. This work dates to about 1647-51, during the period of Castiglione’s interest in the effects of nocturnal illumination. This etching, more notably than others, displays Castiglione use of Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro” (cf. Paolo Bellini in The Illustrated Bartsch, p. 18).

Perhaps the most important Genoese artist of the seventeenth century, Castiglione was a product of the city’s unique cosmopolitanism. Receptive to the works of everyone from Paggi to van Dyck and Strozzi, he created a distinctly elaborate, expressive style in paint and print that won him admiration right across Europe despite his violent personality. Favouring rapid lines, Castiglione was a natural etcher, and he became one of the most gifted, experimental printmakers of the seventeenth century.

Etching, printed with tone on contemporary laid paper with unidentified watermark, trimmed to the platemark, in very good condition.

Bibliografia

Bartsch, Le Peintre graveur (XXI.12.5); The Illustrated Bartsch, 006; Bellini, L'Opera incisa di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, n. 57); Le Blanc, 1858, L. n. 4, Percy, 1971, n. E 20.