A Young Man Reading at Candlelight

Matthias Stom (or Stomer) was a Flemish-born painter who worked primarily in Italy and Sicily, and was one of the most gifted followers of Caravaggio's candlelit manner. His Young Man Reading at Candlelight from around 1700 falls after his likely death (c. 1650) and represents either a later work than usually assumed or an attribution to the Caravaggesque tradition he so expertly practiced. The candlelit reader was one of his characteristic subjects — the warm amber glow of a single candle illuminating a concentrated face over a book or document — combining the domestic intimacy of genre painting with the spiritual associations of the scholar or devotee by lamplight.

Stom's technique in candlelit subjects is exceptional: the warm amber light models the reader's face with extraordinary softness, the candle or oil lamp visible or implied at the painting's edge casting warm illumination that falls off rapidly into surrounding darkness. The book's pages catch the light with a papery warmth that anchors the composition.