# Woman Catching Fleas [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [LA TOUR, Georges de]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas ## Commentary La Tour, as with Rembrandt and Velazquez, made the most creative use of the lessons of Caravaggism. This painting combines chiaroscuro and candlelight with an uncompromising realism, and achieves a surprising intimacy of feeling. This painting is enigmatic in both composition and subject-matter. It strikes an uneasy note because of its stark simplicity, which has usually been interpreted as a genre scene of low life - a woman crushing a flea between her fingernails - but no authentic La Tour depicts such an obviously banal theme without a deeper meaning. The only symbol in the picture is the solitary candle burning on the chair, and it is surely not too speculative to suggest that the picture might reprsent the pregnant Virgin, isolated by Joseph when he discovers that she is with child, the candle thus symbolizing the forthcoming Christ as the Light of the World. <P> <TABLE ALIGN=LEFT CELLPADDING=5 BORDER=1 WIDTH=320 BGCOLOR="\#99CCCC"> <TR VALIGN=MIDDLE><TD><IMG SRC="/support/gif/listen.gif" BORDER=0 VALIGN=MIDDLE> Suggested listening \(streaming mp3, 3 minutes\):<BR><A HREF="\#" onClick="w=window.open \('/music1/19\_cent/mussorgsky\_flea\_song.html', 'newWin', 'scrollbars=yes,status=no,dependent=yes,screenX=0,screenY=0,width=350,height=350'\);w.opener=this;w.focus\(\);return true"><B>Modest Mussorgsky: Flea song</B></A> </TD></TR></TABLE> ## Related artworks - [Adoration of the Shepherds]() - [Blind Musician]() - [Cheater with the Ace of Diamonds]() - [Christ in the Carpenter's Shop \(detail\)]() - [Christ in the Carpenter's Shop]() - [Fortune Teller]() - [Job Mocked by his Wife]() - [Magdalen of Night Light]() - [Magdalen with the Smoking Flame]() - [Peasant Couple Eating]() - [Penitent St Jerome]() - [Saint Jerome Reading]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()