The Story
Tobit Burying the Dead by Andrea di Lione. Gwynne Andrews Fund, 1989
Created in 1649 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Andrea di Lione worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 50 1/4 x 68 1/2 in. (127.6 x 174 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Andrea di Lione builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
