The Annunciation

Almost everything we know about Matthias Stom comes from his years in Italy. He was born in the Low Countries around 1600, then went south, to Rome, Naples and finally Sicily, and it is only the Italian paintings that survive under his name. This Annunciation was most likely made in Naples in the 1630s, and it shows exactly what buyers there wanted from him. A single candle throws the only light in the room. Its glow catches the angel and the young Mary and lifts their faces and hands out of the surrounding dark. That device of a hidden flame came from the followers of Caravaggio, and Stom leaned on it hard, letting the warm light model every fold of cloth. The Uffizi acquired the picture only in 2004.