 Accordingly, the figure of the blind old man (Tobit) would stand for Rembrandt's father (d. 1630), who opposed his son's wish to become an artist and whose vision the young Rembrandt (Tobias) "healed" with the help of the archangel Raphael ("God heals", a name that also symbolizes Art).More recently, Clarke published an interpretation on the internet that relates Rembrandt's composition to the design of his signature in 1632.Jean-Pierre Dautun (1983), a student of the French philosopher Raymond Abellio, offered a detailed phenomenological reading along Gnostic lines, interpreting the central motif of the painting (the basketwork tray) as "the navel, the "omphalos" of the luminous hermetic secret that Rembrandt wishes to transmit