Old woman and boy with candles

Old Woman and Boy with Candles (c. 1616) demonstrates Rubens's engagement with the Caravaggist tradition that was spreading through northern Europe during the first decades of the seventeenth century, transforming the visual culture of Catholic painting with its dramatic use of artificial light and its insistence on the physical reality of biblical and devotional subjects. Rubens had encountered Caravaggio's work during his Italian years — the Roman master's revolutionary naturalism, his use of chiaroscuro to create theatrical contrast between lit forms and surrounding darkness, and his preference for plebeian models rather than classical idealization had been a major subject of artistic debate throughout Italy. The candlelit subject had particular precedents in the Northern tradition — Gerard David and Jan van Eyck had used candlelight — but Rubens's treatment owes its dramatic quality to the Caravaggist revolution. The Mauritshuis's holding places this intimate genre work alongside the Dutch master paintings with which it shares the candlelight subject matter; Rembrandt's later development of candlelit subjects would be inconceivable without the Caravaggist tradition that Rubens helped transmit to the North.

The painting demonstrates Rubens' mastery of artificial light effects, with the warm candle glow creating rich contrasts of light and shadow across the two faces. The intimate scale and domestic subject show a more personal side of the artist's enormous range.

This candlelight genre scene is unusual in Rubens's oeuvre and shows his engagement with Caravaggist themes popular in the early 17th century. The painting has been conserved with attention to preserving the subtle tonal gradations essential to the nocturnal lighting effect.