Elderly woman with a rosary

Rembrandt painted this around 1661, a few years after he had lost almost everything. His house and his collection had been sold off to pay creditors, and he was living more simply and turning out grave, close-up single figures like this one, many of them saints and apostles lit against the dark. The old woman sits deep in shadow, her face and clasped hands catching a low, warm light. There is a small twist to her story. The rosary threaded through her fingers was almost certainly not there at first. Someone added it later, quietly turning a plain old woman, or a sorrowing Virgin, into a Catholic image for prayer. What Rembrandt gave her was mainly the light falling on worn skin.