Goltzius created this engraving as a demonstration of his virtuosity. Using nothing but black and white lines he succeeded in conveying a feeling of night and the mysterious light of a candle that takes on the significance of a symbol of the divine ‘light that shone in darkness". The work has intentionally been left unfinished, testimony to the widespread enthusiasm at the time for collecting proof prints taken from unfinished engravings. One can sense in this composition echoes of the idea of "non finito" - deliberately leaving a work unfinished that was so important for Michelangelo: since perfection is unattainable and a work of art is in any case only a step on the way towards it, its incompleteness is merely an acknowledgement of the impossibility of realizing an ideal.