Positioned facing the convex side of a spoon, in another work in this series the candle demonstrates the reversal of the image (laterally reversed and upside down), as also happens in the camera obscura, and produces an image that then as now can exert a magical attraction on the viewer. The close staging—the polished silver spoon bent 90° is also the candle holder—reinforces the idea of magic: on the one hand because it allows us to sense magic powers, how they can bend spoons by eyesight, and on the other hand it draws on the no less mysterious ancient idea that eyes emit rays of light that scan their surroundings and, with constant use, might perhaps even smooth a spoon’s surface. The Iranian mathematician and optician Alhazen (965–1040) refuted this theory of the visual beam emerging from the eye, which was widespread in antiquity. He researched the eye in parallel to European optical investigations, in which the candle was later repeatedly used as a motif to illustrate the camera obscura.