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An artist who owed much to Pieter Bruegel the Elder was Joos de Momper, one of the landscape painters preceding the generation of Rubens who made a real contribution to the development of that genre. Although he had also made the usual journey to Italy, it was the example of Bruegel that he followed in his many rocky landscapes, and his vision that was reflected in the vast scale of the composition and the interpretation of perspective in distant views. He usually left the staffage to be painted in by fellow artists specialising in figure painting, as in his Tobias' Journey.
The story is recounted in the Book of Tobit. Tobias was sent by his father Tobit to Media to recover a sum of money he had hidden there earlier. Archangel Raphael, sent by God to help Tobit and his family, asked Tobit (who did not recognize the angel) whether he may escort his son on his journey and, in company with Tobias' faithful hound, they departed together. They reached the Tigris, where Tobias was attacked by a gigantic fish. The archangel ordered him to capture it and had him remove and conserve its gall, heart and liver. The innards proved to be a medicine which he can use to restore his father's sight.
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