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From about 1620 onwards, life-size pictures of company scenes with a moral message again start to play an important role in Flemish painting, mainly as a result the influence of Caravaggism. Both Dutch and Flemish Caravaggist genre pictures are among the most prominent expressions of this important artistic phenomenon, which particularly in the 1620s and 1630s would spread from Rome throughout Western Europe. It did not start from Caravaggio himself but his first Italian followers in genre painting, particularly the Florentine Bartolomeo Manfredi. These painters took over a number of elements from the repertoire of Caravaggio and his first followers in Italy in an eclectic fashion. This involved compact compositions with characters mostly shown half-length and in close-up in fancy theatrical costumes, using chiaroscuro lighting and the application of local colour.
In the Southern Netherlands Adam de Coster was perhaps the first painter to specialize in Caravaggist genre pieces.
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