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Girl with a Candle

Follower of Godefridus Schalcken

 (Made 1643 – 1706 The Hague)
date
after 1727
medium
oil on panel
dimensions
36.83 x 29.84 cm
signed information

signed (erroneously) in red paint, lower right corner: “G. Schalcken.”

inventory number
GS-101
Print

Jansen, Guido. “Girl with a Candle” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 4th ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady with Caroline Van Cauwenberge. New York, 2023–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/girl-with-a-candle/ (accessed April 19, 2024).

A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs. Click here to see the archived version(s) of this entry.

Godefridus Schalcken received his first artistic instruction in Dordrecht in the studio of his fellow townsman Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78) beginning around 1656. This period of training certainly ended no later than May 1662, when Van Hoogstraten left for London. To complete his training, Schalcken then went to Leiden to study with Gerrit Dou (1613–75), where he probably remained until about 1664. Although no documents shed light on any of these movements, Schalcken did make a portrait etching of Dou with a text identifying the sitter as his revered teacher: Honoris ergo / Praeceptorum Su’um delineavit / G. Schalcken (). From 1672 onward Schalcken is frequently documented in the archives of Dordrecht, where he had probably returned by the mid-1660s.

During his apprenticeship to Dou, Schalcken learned, among other things, the art of painting nocturnal lighting effects. During these years Dou produced a number of his most famous works in this genre, including both versions of The Evening School. Nevertheless, daylight genre scenes—such as depictions of old women reading, quack doctors and maidservants—dominated Dou’s oeuvre, and, similarly, Schalcken produced mainly small daylight genre scenes and only occasionally painted subjects with artificial illumination.

Schalcken did not begin to paint many nocturnal scenes until the late 1670s. In fact, only after 1685 did the percentage of his work devoted to artificially lit scenes grow significantly, although night scenes were never so numerous as to represent the bulk of his oeuvre. The reason for Schalcken’s growing interest in candlelit scenes was probably Dou’s death in February 1675, which meant that Schalcken was the only master able to meet the demand for top-quality depictions in this specific genre. In the 1690s Schalcken displayed his mastery of this specialty in a series of candlelit self-portraits, and these technical tours de force made him famous in his lifetime.

Compositionally, Girl with a Candle would seem to belong to the second and socially most successful part of Schalcken’s 40-year career. Much as with his self-portraits, the young woman in this painting holds a candle in her right hand as she turns to look at the viewer. Her long curly hair is tied at the back with a blue ribbon and falls in waves over her right shoulder. The large pearl drop dangling on her forehead is fastened to a shorter blue ribbon, and she wears a string of pearls that is visible beneath the large red-orange shawl draped over her left shoulder. Nevertheless, the pictorial quality of the Leiden Collection panel is not at Schalcken’s level. The woman’s face lacks plasticity, and the fingers are rather stiffly executed. Moreover, her clothing is painted with little tonal differentiation, and the painting lacks local color: within the overall orange-red glow of the image, only the blue ribbons in her hair provide color accents.

Dendrochronological analysis of the panel provides reinforcing evidence that Schalcken did not execute this work: the tree from which the panel was hewn was felled around 1727, some 18 years after the artist’s death. The fact that paintings bearing Schalcken’s signature were made after his death is not unexpected. Schalcken’s widow, Françoisia van Diemen (29 August 1661–22 January 1744), who survived her husband by more than 30 years, inherited the paintings left in Schalcken’s workshop. She continued to sell paintings for many years, as documented by the sale of a painting in 1733 to Johan Nicolaas (van) Hafften, the agent of the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. A municipal assessment of The Hague in 1742 indicates that “Francisca van Diemen, Wid(ow) Schalke, rentenierster” had 3,000 guilders worth of income that year. It is probable that she supplemented her income from interest and obligations, and from selling Schalcken’s autograph paintings, by commissioning copies of some of the works in her possession. These were likely executed by students of her late husband who resided in The Hague around 1730, among them her nephew Jacob Schalcken (ca. 1682–1733), Godefridus Callenfels (1683–1748), and Antonie de Waardt (1689–1751).

Girl with a Candle is known in three other versions on three different supports. One of these, which was in the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin before the Second World War, was likewise painted on panel. A version on copper, which was sold by the Kunsthalle in Hamburg after the First World War, was last recorded with a London art dealer in 1938. Finally, a version on canvas was last documented in the early twentieth century. Copper was the most expensive of these supports, and it is probable that the version on copper, formerly in Hamburg, was Schalcken’s autograph painting.

- Guido Jansen, 2017
Endnotes

  1. Van Hoogstraten was active in London until the end of 1667.

  2. The print is in Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts ca. 1450–1700, 72 vols. (Amsterdam, 1949–2010), 24: 154, no. 4 with illustration. The engraver George Vertue (1684–1756) noted the inscription on the print when he saw an impression in the Wardrobe of the Princess Dowager (Catherine of Aragon) in Baynard’s Castle, London, which he visited some time between 1731 and 1736; George Vertue, “Vertue Note Books volume IV” Walpole Society 24 (1935–36): 60. We also know a portrait drawing of Gerrit Dou by Schalcken, which is recorded in the famous collection of artists’ portraits and self-portraits that belonged to the Leiden burgomaster Johan van der Marck (ca. 1694–1770) and was sold at auction on 29 November 1773 in Amsterdam. Lot 1829 is described as follows: “[The Portrait] of Gerard Dou, by G. Schalcken, drawn with the pen and black chalk, height 7½ width 6 thumbs [approx. 19 x 15.5 cm]” ([Het Portrait] van Gerard Douw, door G. Schalken: met de Pen en zwart Kryt getekent, h. 7½ b. 6 duim). RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) Databases, Excerpts, HdG-fiche 1485240. The dimensions suggest that this was a preparatory study.

  3. According to Gerrardys H. Veth, “Godfried Schalcken,” Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis, ed. FD.O. Obreen, 7 vols. (1877–90), 6: 2, Schalcken was recorded as early as 1665 as pennant- or standard-bearer of the seventh standard of the civic militia. Veth’s source, however, gives the year as 1675. See Matthijs Balen, Beschryvinge der stad Dordrecht, 2 vols. (Dordrecht, 1677), 1: 688. Still, the first mention of Schalcken in the Dordrecht archives, in 1672, refers to the civic militia. On 30 September of that year, a group of militiamen, including Schalcken, declared, among other things, that they “hebbende nu enige jaren herwaerts gewoont en gewaeckt onder het vaendel van de Nieuwestraet” (having lived there several years and guarded [been part of the militia company] under the banner of the Nieuwstraat); see the protocol book of the notary Hugo van Dyck, ONA 20.274, unnumbered folio. Schalcken’s parents lived on Nieuwstraat, so apparently he was living with them again. The declaration reveals that by this time he had been back in Dordrecht for “several years.” The artist had, in fact, returned to his home town even before this, since one year later, in 1673, his first recorded painting is described in the inventory of the estate of Jacob van Neurenberg: “Een keucken met een dienstmaecht die visch schoonmaeckt” (A kitchen with a maidservant cleaning fish). Both records can be found in the unpublished archival notes of Abraham Bredius, which are preserved in the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History), Schalcken file. Considering its subject, this genre piece was probably produced between 1665 and 1670. See, for example, Thierry S. Beherman, Godfriend Schalcken (Paris, 1988), nos. 141, 142, 143 (dated 1667), 144, and 160 (dated 1669).

  4. Ronni Baer, “The Paintings of Gerrit Dou (1613–1675),” 3 vols. (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1990), nos. 81 and 110. See also Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis, 2000) (Zwolle, 2000), no. 28.

  5. On early genre pieces painted from 1665 to 1670, see, for example, Thierry S. Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), nos. 141, 142, 143 (dated 1667), 144, and 160 (dated 1669).

  6. It is noteworthy that none of Schalcken’s students painted scenes with artificial lighting in the 1670s. His pupils are Maria Schalcken (ca. 1645–before 1700), the artist’s sister, who apparently studied with Godefridus around 1665–70; Anthony Vreem (1660–81), who was presumably Schalcken’s pupil between 1675 and 1681; and Carel de Moor the Younger (1655–1738), who, after the death of Frans van Mieris in 1681, spent some time with Schalcken in Dordrecht before becoming a member of the Leiden painters’ guild in 1683. There are no documented works by Simon Germain (1656–ca. 1719), who was apprenticed to Schalcken in the 1670s.

  7. Dendrochronology report by Ian Tyers of November 2012, documentation at The Leiden Collection.

  8. “De ‘Rijkdom’ van ’s Gravenhage in 1742,” Algemeen Nederlandsch Familieblad 2 (1884): no. 133 (15 May 1884), 5b.

  9. Jacob Schalcken, the son of Godefridus’s youngest brother, Johannes (1660–1724), returned from London in the company of Schalcken and his family in the fall of 1696, when he must already have been his uncle’s student. We know that Callenfels was with Schalcken for four years, and, given Callenfels’s age, this must have been shortly after the master settled in The Hague. Antonie de Waardt initially studied with Simon van der Does until the latter moved to Antwerp. This information is derived primarily from unpublished archival notes of Abraham Bredius, held at the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History), Schalcken file. New information can also be found in the alphabetical list in Charles Dumas et al., Haagse schilders in de Gouden Eeuw (The Hague, 1998). On De Waardt, see Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 7 vols. (The Hague, 1915–21), 3: 1025–30, esp. nos. 17, 80, 81, and 145. In addition to the three students mentioned above, Arent Pijl (ca. 1680–after 1721) and a man with the last name Vincentius studied with Schalcken in The Hague. Arent Pijl was a student of the The Hague Drawing Academy from 1696 to 1702 and will have spent those years in Schalcken’s studio, after which he finished his training with Carel de Moor in Leiden. In a notarial record of 23 April 1698, Jacobus Schalcken and Arent Pijl declared that two paintings in the home of Pieter van der Luyt were copies after Schalcken, and were thus already considered qualified to authenticate their master’s work; Abraham Bredius, “Een expertise van 1698” Oud Holland 47 (1930): 157. The student Vincentius, who registered as student of the The Hague Drawing Academy in 1702, cosigned a notarial record with Schalcken in 1704. He is likely to be the father of Johannes Vincentius, who was active as portraitist later in the eighteenth century.

  10. Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), no. 195 (oil on panel, 36 x 30.8 cm; HdG no. 222). The catalogue of the museum in Schwerin compiled by Friedrich Schlie, Beschreibendes Verzeichniss der Werke älterer Meister in der Grossherzoglichen Gemälde-Gallerie zu Schwerin (Schwerin, 1882), 570, no. 937, contains a facsimile of the signature, which reveals that this was another version of GS-101. The painting was part of the old holdings of the dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had perhaps acquired it from the painter’s widow. A bill has survived for another painting from Schalcken’s estate that she sold in 1733 to Johan Nicolaas (van) Hafften, the agent of the duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; see my entry in Ekkehard Mai, Sander Paarlberg, and Gregor M. Weber, Vom Adel der Malerei: Holland um 1700 (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrechts, Dordrechts Museum; Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe) (Cologne, 2006), 262, no. 74.

  11. Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), fig. 195a (oil on copper, 37 x 32 cm; recorded in HdG no. 222). In 1938 the painting was with West’s Galleries in London; see West’s Galleries, Winter Exhibition: Dutch and Flemish Portraits and Genre-Pictures of the 16th and 17th Centuries, Exh. cat. London, West’s Galleries (London, 1938), no. 21.

  12. According to the documentation, the version on canvas (Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), fig. 195b; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith, ed. and trans. Edward G. Hawke, 8 vols. [London, 1907–28]; originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. [Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28], 5: no. 222c) was still at Wilton House in 1907; see Neville Rodwell Wilkinson, Wilton House Pictures (London, 1907), no. 278 (47 x 37.5 cm).

Iconclass Terms
  • [Kunstsalon Abels, Cologne].
  • Private collection (sale, Lempertz, 5 November 2003, no. 1137).
  • [Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam].
  • [Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam, 2004].
  • From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.
  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 5: 374, no. 222a. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28. (Possibly).

The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular western European oak from a tree felled after 1727, has bevels along all four sides. The panel is unthinned and uncradled and has no machine tool marks. Traces of a gray-green radio-opaque priming along the panel reverse extend over a faint inscription. Five old paper labels, white chalk, red marker, and black inscriptions extend over the traces of priming. There are no wax collection seals, import stamps or panel maker’s marks.

A light gray ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been applied opaquely and medium rich, which has allowed a fine network of drying cracks to form through the left side of the background, along the figure’s cheek, chin and neck depicted in highlight, and along the horizontal drapery folds below the figure’s neck.

No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers, and in the X-radiograph, only the flame tip and the traces of priming along the reverse are identifiable.

The painting is (erroneously) signed in red paint along the lower right corner but is undated. Dendrochronology indicates the oak support derives from a tree felled 21 years after Schalcken’s death.

The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition in 2004 and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

  1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers’s November 2012 dendrochronology report.

  2. Visible in small areas of loss along the center of the lower edge and a small loss along the left vertical edge (11.5 cm up from the lower edge).

  3. The painting was examined on-site. Further investigation under a stereomicroscope could help determine whether the signature extends over cracks.

Versions & Copies

  1. Attributed to Godefridus Schalcken, Young Girl with a Candle, oil on copper, 38 x 31.7 cm, present location unknown, formerly in Kunsthalle, Hamburg.
  2. Attributed to Godefridus Schalcken, Young Woman in Half-Length with a Candle, oil on panel, 36 x 30.8 cm, present location unknown, formerly in Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin. See Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. 8 vols. London, 1907–27. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28. London, 1916, no. 222.
  3. Attributed to Godefridus Schalcken, A Young Lady with a Lighted Candle, 45.7 x 34.3 cm, present location unknown. See Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. 8 vols. London, 1907–27. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28. London, 1916, no. 222b.
  4. Attributed to Godefridus Schalcken, A Young Lady Holding a Candle, oil on canvas, 47 x 37.5 cm, present location unknown. See Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. 8 vols. London, 1907–27. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28. London, 1916, no. 222c.
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