Carlo Francesco Nuvolone (Milan 1609-1662)

The subject is taken from the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Tobias, the son of a devout Jew in exile in Assyria in the 8th Century B.C. was sent by his merchant father Tobit, to collect a debt. Tobias looked for a travelling companion and met the Archangel Raphael who agreed to accompany him. While bathing in the River Tigris the Archangel instructed the boy to extract the heart, liver and gall from a fish as a cure to heal his father's blindness.