Skip to main content

Giovanni dal Ponte, 'Saints Raphael and Tobias: Roundel above Right Panel', about 1420-4?

Key facts
Full title Saints Raphael and Tobias: Roundel above Right Panel
Artist Giovanni dal Ponte
Artist dates about 1385 - 1437
Group Ascension of John the Evangelist Altarpiece
Date made about 1420-4?
Medium and support egg tempera on wood
Dimensions 13.4 × 13.4 cm
Acquisition credit Bought, 1857
Inventory number NG580.8
Location Not on display
Collection Main Collection
Saints Raphael and Tobias: Roundel above Right Panel
Giovanni dal Ponte
/

In this small, circular painting a young boy holds a fish in one hand and clasps the hand of an angel with the other. This is the story of Tobias and the angel: Tobias caught a large fish in the Tigris and was advised by the Archangel Raphael to keep its internal organs as a cure for his father’s blindness.

The picture comes from a large polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) painted in the 1420s by the Florentine artist Giovanni dal Ponte, which sat on the high altar of the church of the Camaldolese nunnery of San Giovanni Evangelista at Pratovecchio in Tuscany. Several of its panels are now in the National Gallery’s collection.

Download image
Download low-resolution image

Download a low-resolution copy of this image for personal use.

License this image

License and download a high-resolution image for reproductions up to A3 size from the National Gallery Picture Library.

License image
Download low-resolution image

This image is licensed for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons agreement.

Examples of non-commercial use are:

  • Research, private study, or for internal circulation within an educational organisation (such as a school, college or university)
  • Non-profit publications, personal websites, blogs, and social media

The image file is 800 pixels on the longest side.

As a charity, we depend upon the generosity of individuals to ensure the collection continues to engage and inspire. Help keep us free by making a donation today.

Download low-resolution image

You must agree to the Creative Commons terms and conditions to download this image.

Creative Commons Logo

Ascension of John the Evangelist Altarpiece

/

This large, gilded polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) is one of the few almost complete early Renaissance altarpieces in the National Gallery’s collection. It was made for the church of San Giovanni Evangelista, in Pratovecchio, Tuscany, probably in the 1420s.

Altarpieces on the high altar had to show the saint to whom the church was dedicated. Here, in the centre panel, we see Saint John the Evangelist being raised to heaven by Christ. A crowd of saints seems to watch from the large panels on either side.

The nuns at Pratovecchio were Camaldolites – a small, strict religious order found mainly in Italy – and the saints on the altarpiece would have been those who were important to them. This is one of the few surviving paintings of this date which might well have been commissioned by women – two abbesses – for the use of women.