Artists sometimes destroy in order to create. This print began life very differently. The original copper printing plate bore an etching by Hercules Seghers showing Tobias and the archangel Raphael (figures from the Catholic Bible) on their mission to restore the eyesight of Tobias’s father. About 15 years after Seghers’s death, Rembrandt got hold of the plate, and used it to create a new scene.

Seghers was one of Rembrandt’s favorite artists. Rembrandt owned several of his paintings, and Seghers owned at least one by Rembrandt.

Rembrandt scraped away part of the original etching, and then used a drypoint needle to sketch an image of the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt.

Image: Hercules Seghers, Tobias and the Angel, c. 1630–33, etching, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

To the right of Joseph and the donkey, we can still see traces of the angel’s leg and staff.

Image: Detail of Hercules Seghers, Tobias and the Angel, c. 1630–33, etching, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Part of the angel’s wing is also visible in the trees at upper left.

Image: Detail of Hercules Segheres, Tobias and the Angel, c. 1630-33, etching, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam”

Seghers’s work, now quite rare and seldom seen in North America, is unusually fine and atmospheric. Rembrandt scraped at the center of the landscape to channel the river closer to us, but he left most of Seghers’ scenery intact.