A Boy Blowing on a Firebrand to Light a Charcoal

This painting is a striking example of the candlelit genre scenes for which Godfried Schalken was most famous. The work recreates the subject of a classical painting, by Antiphilos of Alexandria, described in Pliny's Natural History. Northern painters quickly adopted this motif and the subject of a boy with an ember is found in the work of a long line of Dutch painters such as Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrick Ter Brugghen, Jan Lievens and Matthijs Stom.