Three Archangels with the little Tobias

Three Archangels with the Little Tobias, now in Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, depicts the apocryphal story from the Book of Tobit in which young Tobias travels with the disguised angel Raphael to collect a debt and bring back a cure for his father's blindness. The subject was popular in Florentine painting partly because Raphael was the patron of travellers and of the Florentine guild of doctors and apothecaries — the Compagnia di Raffaello commissioned many such images. The Master of Pratovecchio's treatment with three archangels — Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael — places the subject within the civic-devotional tradition of Florence's confraternities.

Tempera and gold leaf on panel. The three archangels are arranged to create spatial depth through overlapping, one of the main spatial devices available to painters before full perspectival construction. The tiny figure of Tobias at their feet emphasises the protective relationship through scale contrast.