Raphael and Tobias

The healing archangel walking a boy home with a fish and a dog: the only angel in art with a travel companion.

Raphael travels. He is painted as a walking companion to the boy Tobias, in a cloak, with a staff and a fish — the fish whose gall cures the father's blindness. Because the story is about a journey and a safe return, Raphael became the angel commissioned by families whose sons were away: a substantial number of these panels are votive pictures with a private reason behind them.