Matthias Stom Amersfoort near Utrecht circa 1600 - after 1652 (?) Sicily or Northern Italy (?)

The painting shows two of the Four Evangelists.  Mark , seen to the left, looking directly at the viewer, is shown with the attribute of a lion and holding a large book with the words: 'Pax tibi, marce, evangelista mea' ('Peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist'), the words spoken by Christ when he visited him in prison.  To the right, Luke is seen writing his gospel, with the ox, his attribute, beside him.  The painting has a pendant, now in Columbia University, New York, depicting the evangelists Matthew and John (fig. 1).  The Columbia picture, in which the two figures are seen in animated discussion, provides a contrast with the more reflective nature of the present work, in which both figures are absorbed in their own thoughts.

The painting, which probably dates from the mid-1630s, shows the artist at his most Caravaggesque, not only in the earthy tones, dramatic lighting and intense realism of the figures, but also in its more direct inspiration from a specific Caravaggesque source.  The figure of St. Luke in the present picture was almost certainly painted with a knowledge of Caravaggio's St. Matthew and the Angel , formerly Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich Museum, destroyed in 1945, which was painted for the Contarelli Chapel of S. Luigi dei Francesi in Rome in 1602 but rejected by the Church authorities on grounds of decorum.  Like Caravaggio's evangelist, Stom's balding and bearded St.Luke is portrayed hunched over his gospel, his legs crossed, with his right foot projecting forwards to the front of the picture plane.