Matthias Stom (1600-after 1650), Attr. 17th Century, Old Woman With Candle

Matthias Stom (Amersfoort c. 1600-after 1650, Sicily), attr. 17th century
Old woman with candle
Oil on canvas, cm 91 x 70 
with frame cm 125 x 104

It is a genre scene set at night: an elderly lady has a wrinkled face illuminated by the dim light of an oil lamp, which radiates its rays on thin fingers, intent on counting coins, on the very precise details of the dress and on the face, leaving everything else in the shade. The intimacy of the scene reflects some paintings of Caravaggio’s ancestry, such as Vecchia con candela, 1650-1700 (Milan, Fondazione Cariplo Collection). Federico Zeri hijacks the attribution from Rubens to the workshop of the great artist. It is actually a copy free from an invention of Rubens, known through a canvas, mentioned at the death of the painter of his inventory as "pourtrait d'une vieille avec un garcon, à la nuict". There is also an engraving with the scene taken upside down, of the original at the Museum of The Hague and placed between about 1616 and 1617. Usually considered as one of the few made directly by the artist, the latter brings at the bottom an inscription with a clear allusion to the theme of 'vanitas': "quis vetet appositet, lumen de lumine tolli / Mille licet capiant, deperit inde nihil" (R. Mezzetti, in Rubens and the 1977 engraving, p. 14, n. 2; tav. 2; cf. the various specimens preserved at the British Museum in London). 
Another excellent interpreter of the so-called "light painting" is Matthias Stom or Stomer (Amersfoort c. 1600-after 1650, Sicily). Among the most extraordinary admirers of late European Caravaggism, he was born around 1600 and formed between Flanders and Holland under Gerard van Honthorst, as part of a culture of transition between Late Christianity and the great naturalistic revolution determined by the impact of Nordic artists with the avant-garde painting of Caravaggio. The activity of the Stom took place through a long pilgrimage through the Italian peninsula.
Documented for the first time in 1630, in a Rome now in full baroque explosion, he was part of a group of "romantic" naturalists. One of its peculiarities is the depiction of figures in the foreground, very close to the relative, outlined by strong chiaroscuro contrasts and accentuated realism.
His exceptional ability to portray night scenes illuminated by torches and candles allowed him to emerge in the Neapolitan artistic circles, frequented between 1633 and 1637. It was in the city of Naples that he succeeded in renewing his language, alongside the last achievements of Jusepe Ribera and the airy painting promoted within the neo-venetian currents. On this front, without neglecting the interest for the nocturnes, he moved once landed in Palermo, where he remained until about 1645, joining the circuit of the many Flemish artists active in the city. Engaged by the most powerful landed aristocracy, he gave birth in Sicily some of his greatest masterpieces, the last and extraordinary expression of the poetic naturalist of the early seventeenth century.
This painting follows a long tradition of depictions of men or women who count money. Such scenes often fluctuate between genre and allegory, with figures sometimes intended to represent Avarice - avarice or greed - one of the seven deadly sins. In Cesare Ripa’s Iconology, avarice is described as an elderly woman - "because greed dominates the elderly". She is accompanied by a wolf and has a closed bag, which she "takes more pleasure in watching [...] than [...] to use [...] to relieve anguish and destitution". However, realizing this, the viewer comes to a better understanding of the underlying morality, namely that fighting for material wealth makes no sense, that life is about more important things. The details are reduced to a minimum in a synthesis that also involves the drafting of the painting, as the plays of light on the right hand or the vivid reflections that scrutinize to the millimeter the face of the elderly woman, veiled by melancholy. The painter’s predilection is for the almost dramatic contrasts of light and shadow, for the light of candles, for the colors red and yellow and for the gestures and lively expressions. His heads are extraordinarily lively and often have a personal, even portrait quality. This expressiveness is underlined by the combination of wrinkled, furrowed and evocative chiaroscuro. Despite these visual theatricalities, the artist also managed to suggest a great sense of intimacy: the woman is completely absorbed by her task. Her clothes and rough hands are extremely accentuated and characterize her as belonging to the people.
The luministic and chiaroscuro effects are in fact influenced by the art of Caravaggio and the Caravaggeschi, artists that the Flemings in Italy had the opportunity to appreciate and study, see the famous Cena in Emmaus di Brera (1606)in which the wrinkled face of the old in the background recalls the one in question, as well as the chiaroscuro reflections; faces also compared with the Madonna dei Pellegrini in Sant'Agostino in Rome, with the Madonna dei Palafrenieri (Galleria Borghese) and with Judith and Holofernes of Toulouse. 

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