The earliest picture of Titian which remains to us is a St. Raphael leading Tobias;[96] beautiful, but not equal, certainly, to that of Carotto. Raphael, as we might naturally suppose, painted his guardian angel and patron saint _con amore_:[97] we have by him two St. Raphaels; the first, a little figure executed when he was a boy in the studio of his master Perugino, is now on one side of an altar-piece in the Certosa at Pavia. Later in life, and in one of his finest works, he has introduced his patron saint with infinite beauty of feeling: in the Madonna della Pesce,[98] the Virgin sits upon her throne, with the Infant Christ in her arms; the angel Raphael presents Tobias, who is not here a youth but a child; while the Infant Christ turns away from the wise bearded old doctor, who is intently studying his great book, to welcome the angel and his charge. The head of the angel, looking up in the face of the Madonna, is in truth sublime: it would be impossible to determine whether it belongs to a masculine or a feminine being; but none could doubt that it is a _divine_ being, filled with fervent, enthusiastic, adoring love. The fish in the hand of Tobias has given its name to the picture; and I may as well observe that in the devotional pictures, where the fish is merely an attribute, expressing Christian baptism, it is usually very small: in the story it is a sort of monster, which sprang out of the river and would have devoured him. All the subjects in which the Archangel Raphael is an actor belong to the history of Tobit. The scenes of this beautiful scriptural _legend_—I must call it so—have been popular subjects of Art, particularly in the later schools, and have been admirably treated by some of the best Dutch and Flemish painters: the combination of the picturesque and poetical with the homely and domestic recommended it particularly to Rembrandt and his school. Tobias dragging the fish ashore, while the angel stands by, is a fine picturesque landscape subject which has been often repeated. The spirited little sketch by Salvator,[99] in which the figure of the guardian angel is admirable for power and animated grace; the twilight effect by Rembrandt;[100] another by Domenichino; three by Claude; may be cited as examples. [Illustration: 47 Archangel (Rembrandt)] In such pictures, as it has been rightly observed, the angel ought not to have wings: he is disguised as the friendly traveller. The dog, which ought to be omitted in the devotional pictures, is here a part of the story, and figures with great propriety.