Woman counting coins by candlelight, allegory of avarice

Woman Counting Coins by Candlelight, an allegory of avarice painted around 1635, belongs to the moralizing genre tradition that Dutch and Flemish painters had cultivated since the sixteenth century. Stom transforms the didactic subject through his dramatic lighting, making the miser's absorption in her gold a visual metaphor for spiritual blindness — fixated on worldly treasure while surrounded by enveloping darkness. Stom's mastery of candlelight effects was among the most technically accomplished of all Caravaggist painters, surpassing many of his contemporaries in the subtlety of his graduated shadows and the warmth of his artificial illumination.

The coins catch the candlelight with gleaming precision, their reflective surfaces providing Stom with an opportunity to demonstrate virtuosic rendering of metallic textures. The old woman's intent face, lit from below, creates an almost grotesque intensity.