Tobias with the Angel

Francis Place

1647 Dinsdale – 1728 York

Pen and brown ink, with brown and grey wash. Sheet size: 24.4 x 19.9 cm.

Provenance: Sir Bruce Ingram (1877 – 1963) (Lugt. 1405a)

In the present work Tobias is depicted extracting the heart, liver and gall from a fish, under the instruction of the archangel Raphael, as a cure for his father’s blindness.

Francis Place was a renowned draughtsman of topographic views, which he produced on his journeys through England. He was an etcher himself, but there are also a number of prints after his designs. Place is considered a pioneer of mezzotint in England. Religious subjects are rare among his oeuvre and were probably inspired by Wenceslas Hollar (1607 Prague – 1677 London).
“While in London he had met Hollar (1666-7), whose work was to have a lasting influence on his style. He later bought Hollar’s sketchbooks and many of his prints from his widow” (1).

On stylistic grounds this drawing can be dated to the early 1680s. A constant characteristic of Place’s drawings is his treatment of foliage (see the drawings in his Large Sketchbook, City Art Gallery, York). His figure studies can best be compared with those in the foreground of his drawing View of Lambeth from Millbank of 1683 (2).

Our drawing comes from the important collection of particularly early English drawings assembled by the publisher Sir Bruce Ingram (1877 – 1963). Due to their rarity, English drawings of the seventeenth century have received less scholarly attention than those of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Richard Tyler’s 1971 monograph remains the most comprehensive account of Place’s oeuvre (3).

(1) Stainton/White, p. 189.
(2) Tyler, cat. no. 33.
(3) Tyler, 1971

Bought by a private collector, United Kingdom.