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Godfried Schalcken

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Godfried Schalcken or Gottfried Schalken (1643, Made - November 16, 1706, The Hague), was a Dutch genre and portrait painter. He was noted for his mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight.

Life and work

Godfried Schalcken was born in 1643 at Dordrecht, and he studied under Hoogstraten in Dordrecht before he moved to Leyden, into the studio of Gerard Douw, or Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), one of Rembrandt's most famous pupils. His earlier genre-pictures very closely resemble Douw's work. He worked in Leyden until c. 1675, then returning to Dordrecht until 1691, after which he settled in The Hague, where he continued to paint until his death, near age 63, in 1706. He also visited England (1692-1697), but his uncouth manners and bad temper alienated him from the society there. In 1703 he was employed by Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf.

Schalcken painted several portraits, of which the half-length of William III of England, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is a good example. In this work he shows an effect of candlelight, which he also introduced—frequently with fine effect in many of his subject-pictures. These may be studied in the collections at Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, Vienna and Dresden. His masterpiece is a scene from Vrouwtje kom ten Hoof (Buckingham Palace); other good examples are: Old Woman Scouring a Pan and Soldier Giving Money to a Woman (London, National Gallery); Ceres Seeking Proserpine and Old Man Writing (Louvre); Girl Blowing Out Taper (Munich); Girl Reading Letter (Dresden Gallery); The Boy Angling (Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin); and Toilet by Candle (The Hague). The Buckingham Palace collection possesses an interior by Schalcken, which is regarded as a masterpiece. His scriptural subjects are of very indifferent merit.

"Schalken the Painter"

The atmospheric work of Schalken provided the inspiration for "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (sic), a gothic horror story by Sheridan Le Fanu, which was adapted and broadcast by the BBC at Christmas in 1979.

Further reading

References

External links

  • "Schalken The Painter" by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, The Weird Review, 2000, webpage: VB-GSchalken



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