Gerard van Honthorst

When Gerard van Honthorst worked in Rome as a young man, the Italians gave him a nickname that stuck: Gherardo delle Notti, Gerard of the nights. He had learned from the followers of Caravaggio to build a whole picture around a single hidden flame, and he painted candlelit taverns, musicians, and holy scenes lit by a nativity fire, faces glowing out of deep dark.

He carried that Utrecht version of Caravaggio's drama back to the Netherlands, where for a while it was hugely fashionable. Then his career took a courtly turn. He became a portrait painter to princes, working for the exiled queen of Bohemia, briefly for Charles I in England, and for the Dutch stadtholder's court.

The candlelight faded from his work as the commissions grew grander and blander, and he ran a large studio turning out royal likenesses. He died in Utrecht in 1656, his estate large enough to show how well the business of painting princes had paid.