The single candle illuminating figures was pretty common and started in the Baroque period. It would be difficult to pinpoint.

Hmm, nothing like a bit of detective work to distract one from the day's duties. Can you remember any of the following details?

1. Were any of the figures looking out at the viewer?
1A. If so, was it a single figure, a few, a majority, or all?
2. Were all the figures male? Only some?
3. Were the figures secular, or was the setting derived from biblical scenarios?

Jog any memories so far? If not, then we've the more tricky task of highlighting or eliminating artists based on their overall style- which isn't to say your mystery painting couldn't have been an exception to the artist's regular trends.

So it basically looks like we're leaning towards the Dutch.

But Rembrandt's chairoscuro was often done without the visual device of placing a candle in the frame. Like Vermeer, his light sources tend to come from windows or portals, or are remeniscent of modern studio lighting, suffusing the subject from a point off-frame. Same goes for Caravaggio. This makes them less likely suspects, although your description immediately made me think of Rembrandts "The Sydics of the Cloth Guild".

If the candle is central to your memory of the painting then La Tour is a more likely suspect as Marie rightly points out. Van Honthorst also used the pinpoint effect of candles, though his work trends strongly towards the religious. Anyone know more about these two?

No, that one has no paper, is arranged like a traditional Last Supper, and has Christ pointing up to his own spirit appearing above them.

There's no candle and only four people.

I thought of Caravaggio's "The Calling of St. Matthew"... but the lighting is mainly from the window/Christ.

hmmm. perplexing indeed.