Attributed to Jan Symonsz. Pynas Alkmaar 1581/2 - 1631 Amsterdam

The subject is taken from the second book of Kings, chapter 4, verses 1-7. It relates how a widow of a man from the company of the prophet Elisha bewailed the fact that his creditors were to sell her sons into slavery. Elisha responded by making her collect all of the empty jars in the neighbourhood, and then miraculously filled them with oil so she could pay her debts.

Dr Christopher Brown has endorsed the attribution. Drs Astrid and Christopher Tümpels, however, do not a accept the attribution and intend to publish the picture in their forthcoming book Rembrandt, his teachers and his contemporaries: The Pre-Rembrandtists, Vol. II, as an unknown Pre-Rembrandtist.