Statimque Tobias visum recepit – Biblia Sacra Series

Description of Art: Statimque Tobias visum recepit (“And Immediately Tobias Received His Sight”) is one of Salvador Dalí’s evocative religious works, reflecting his deep interest in biblical narratives during the later stages of his career. The title references the Book of Tobit, in which the Archangel Raphael guides Tobias to heal his father’s blindness using the gall of a fish.

Dalí’s composition captures the miraculous moment of restoration with a sense of dramatic reverence. At the center, Tobias is depicted with his hands outstretched, as if receiving both sight and divine illumination. Raphael, often shown as a towering and elegant presence, guides the scene with a gesture that is both protective and triumphant. The background is rendered with Dalí’s characteristic surrealist landscape—an infinite horizon under a luminous sky—placing this biblical miracle within a dreamlike, timeless realm.

The color palette is warm yet spiritual: soft golds, deep siennas, and radiant whites suggest both earthly materiality and heavenly light. Dalí’s technical precision is evident in the delicate rendering of figures, as well as the symbolic elements—fish, flowing water, and elongated shadows—that hint at purification, rebirth, and divine guidance.

This work exemplifies Dalí’s late-career mystical phase, in which he sought to reconcile his surrealist vision with Catholic theology, presenting sacred stories through a lens of psychological depth and cosmic wonder. Statimque Tobias visum recepit stands as a meditation on faith, healing, and the miraculous power of divine intervention.