Young Man and Woman Studying a
Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Godefridus Schalcken(Made 1643 – 1706 The Hague)ca. 1688–92
oil on canvas
43.8 x 34.9 cm
signed faintly lower right on the base of thestatue: “G. Schalcken”
GS-103© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 2 of 10

How to cite
Jansen, Guido. “Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight” (2017). In The Leiden
Collection

Catalogue,

2nd

ed.

EditedbyArthurK.

Wheelock

Jr.

New

York,

2017–20.

https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/a-young-man-and-woman-studying-a-statue-of-venus-by-lamplight/(archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative
occurs.

In this engaging and atmospheric picture, a young man is shown wearing a

Comparative Figures

painter’s beret and holding a drawing in his left hand that displays thecontours of the plaster or marble statue of a kneeling nude woman in front ofhim. He points to this statue with his right hand while looking up at the young
woman standing next to him, to whom he apparently explains the drawing
and the statue. A copper oil lamp illuminates the scene, which is closed off
on the right by a green curtain. Discernible in the right foreground is theplaster cast of the head of an antique female figure, probably the so-called
Juno Cesi.[1] Godefridus Schalcken might have been familiar with the actual
antique statue of the kneeling Venus (or Aphrodite), or he might have owned
a plaster cast of it. He could also have known of this fragment through an
engraving by Jan de Bisschop (1628–1671), which De Bisschop based on a
drawing by the Roman artist Franceso Salviati (1510–63). Bisschop
published this drawing in his Signorum veterum icones of 1671 (fig 1).[2]Because of its subject—the viewing of art—the painting has previously beeninterpreted mainly in the context of art theory. Young painters, who had to

Fig 1. Jan de Bisschop afterFrancesco Salviati, Crouching
Aphrodite, engraving, plate 77 in
his Signorum veterum icones(Hagae-Comitis, 1671)

study antique sculptures before progressing to drawing from a livemodel,[3] were advised to draw such sculptures by artificial light; thisapproach caused the contours of the sculptures to emerge more clearly andallowed the artist to practice rendering objects in relief. This academic
practice has fused perfectly here with Schalcken’s artistic strength:
rendering nocturnal scenes illuminated by artificial light. The glowing flame of© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 3 of 10

the oil lamp both models the smooth surface of the sculpture and gently
illuminates the young painters, drawing them together through the subdued
reddish tonalities of their faces. Indeed, the atmospheric effects created by
the flow of light and color across this image—from the flame’s white heat tothe sculpture’s muted ivory-colored surface and the softly-lit figures—are
beautifully rendered and quite evocative.
The presence of lamplight may also allude to studious diligence anddedication—a figurative illumination, or enlightenment, resulting from the true
artist’s rigorous training. Schnackenburg, a strong proponent of this view,Fig 2. Godefridus Schalcken,
Allegory of the Treaty of Nijmegen,ca. 1688–92, oil on canvas, 66 x
82 cm, Museum Het Valkhof,
Nijmegen, 1980.12

considers the entire painting to be exemplary of a new stylistic and thematic
direction in Schalcken’s art, in which he examines Bisschop’s ideas andponders classicist thought.[4] Crucial to this interpretation is the identificationof the young man in the painting as Schalcken himself.[5] Schnackenburg
also attaches great importance to the presence of the statue of Venus, which
in her eyes refers to the rivalry between painting and sculpture.[6]The presence of the statue of Venus is clearly significant, but it has less to
do with the many art-theoretical notions attached to the figure than to her roleas the goddess of love for the ancient Greeks and Romans alike. Here thesubject chiefly involves the love presumed to exist between the young man
and the young woman, for which the magnificently spotlighted statue ofVenus serves as a catalyst. The amorous context depicted here fits inperfectly with the main themes found in Schalcken’s oeuvre, which is filledwith references to the kindling of love between two people. The multiple
layers of meaning that can be found in this composition make it clear thatFig 3. François de Poilly, Thesis ofLouis-Nicolas and Louis-Francis
Le Tellier, 1684, engraving, 121 x
82.5 cm, Bibliothèque Nationale,
Paris, Est. AA-6

Schalcken gave great thought to his subjects, an observation previously
made by Hecht.[7]Beherman dated this small work to between 1680 and 1685, owing to his
identification of the protagonists as the painter and his young wife, Françoisia
van Diemen, who married in 1679. The dating of Schalcken’s genre andhistory paintings is often problematic because we know only a handful of
dated genre scenes and half a dozen dated history paintings, which mainly
stem from his later years (see GS-112).[8] Nevertheless, Beherman’s datingof Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplightneglects the fact that the work—in Schalcken’s most frequently used format
of approximately 44 by 34.9 cm—is painted on canvas. At that stage in his
career he would have been more likely to execute paintings of this size on
panel, or occasionally on copper (see, for example, GS-102). Moreover, thedry, thin manner of painting and the use of pastel hues, evident here in the

Fig 4. Godefridus Schalcken,
Portrait of a Lady, Bust-Length, in
a Black Dress with White Lace
Trim, Here Identified as Françoisia
van Diemen, the Artist’s Wife,
1692–96, oil on copper, 9 x 7.4
cm, oval, Private Collection, ©
Dordrechts Museum/ Marco deNood© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 4 of 10

figures’ pink lips, also differ from the works painted around 1680.
Stylistically, Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by
Lamplight is closely related to Schalcken’s Allegory of the Treaty of
Nijmegen (fig 2).[9] Beherman dated this latter painting, of a size rather large
for Schalcken, to around 1676–77, largely because the French painter Henri
Gascard (1635–1701) produced a thematically similar work depicting The
Signing of the Treaty of Nijmegen between France and Spain on 17
September 1678, which is preserved in the Museum Het Valkhof in
Nijmegen.[10] It is more likely, however, that Schalcken’s Allegory of theTreaty of Nijmegen, with its thin application of paint and somewhat divergent,tempered use of color, originated around 1688–92, toward the end of theartist’s activities in Dordrecht. This stylistic dating can be underpinned in yet
another way. For this unusual composition, Schalcken appears to have madeuse of a French engraving published in Paris by François de Poilly (1623–93)
in 1684 (fig 3).[11] Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by

Fig 5. Gerrit Dou, A Young Artist
Drawing by Lamplight, ca.
1650–55, oil on panel, 29 x 23.5
cm, Musées royaux des BeauxArts de Belgique, Brussels, inv.
86, © Royal Museums of Fine Artsof Belgium, Brussels / photo: J.
Geleyns – Ro scan

Lamplight should, therefore, be dated to the same period, from around 1688
to 1692. This later dating immediately calls into question the identification of
the young artist and his pupil as Schalcken and his wife. Moreover, a small,recently discovered portrait of Françoisia reveals that in these years, having
given birth to eight children, she no longer looked as she did in the first yearof her marriage (fig 4).[12]The influence of Schalcken’s teacher Gerrit Dou (1613–75) is still present toa remarkable degree in this late painting. Dou painted a large number ofworks portraying an artist, mostly himself, sometimes working in his studio
but always wearing a painter’s cap.[13] Occasionally the artist is showndrawing a statue by the light of an oil lamp, as in An Artist Drawing in
Brussels (fig 5), which is the work most closely related in subject to Young
Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight.[14]- Guido Jansen, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 5 of 10

Endnotes

1. Sophie Schnackenburg, “‘Studium’ und ‘Inspiratio’: Godfried Schalcken’s Gemälde‘Kunstbetrachtung bei Lampenlicht’ (um 1680/85) im Spannungsfeld ikonographischer
Tradition und zeitgenössischer Kunsttheorie,” Müncher Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 54(2003): 183.
2. Jan Gerrit van Gelder and Ingrid Jost, Jan de Bisschop and His Icones & Paradigmata:Classical Antiquities and Italian Drawings for Artistic Instruction in Seventeenth-Century
Holland, ed. Keith Andrews (Doornspijk, 1985), 161–63, no. 77 with illustration.
3. Betsy Wieseman, in De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw in Hollands
oudste stad, ed. Peter Marijnissen, Wim de Paus, Peter Schoon, and George Schweitzer(Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Zwolle, 1992), 267. Also Ekkehard Mai in
Wettstreit der Künste: Malerei und Skulptur von Dürer bis Daumier, ed. Ekkehard Mai and
Kurt

Wettengl

(Exh.

cat.

Cologne,Wallraf-Richartz-Museum,

Fondation

Corboud)(Wolfratshausen, 2002), 331.
4. Sophie Schnackenburg, “‘Studium’ und ‘Inspiratio’: Godfried Schalcken’s Gemälde‘Kunstbetrachtung bei Lampenlicht’ (um 1680/85) im Spannungsfeld ikonographischer
Tradition und zeitgenössischer Kunsttheorie,” Müncher Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 54(2003): 183–217.
5. This identification was first published in Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988).
See also Sophie Schnackenburg, “‘Studium’ und ‘Inspiratio’: Godfried Schalcken’s
Gemälde‘Kunstbetrachtungbei

Lampenlicht’(um

1680/85)

im

Spannungsfeld

ikonographischer Tradition und zeitgenössischer Kunsttheorie,” Müncher Jahrbuch der
Bildenden Kunst 54 (2003): 207 n. 4, for all those who adopted Beherman’s identification.
6. In addition to Sophie Schnackenburg, “‘Studium’ und ‘Inspiratio’: Godfried Schalcken’s
Gemälde‘Kunstbetrachtungbei

Lampenlicht’(um

1680/85)

im

Spannungsfeld

ikonographischer Tradition und zeitgenössischer Kunsttheorie,” Müncher Jahrbuch der
Bildenden Kunst 54 (2003): 183–217, see also Peter Hecht, “Art Beats Nature, and Painting
Does So Best of All: The Paragone Competition in Duquesnoy, Dou and Schalcken” Simiolus
29 (2002): 184–201.
7. Peter Hecht, “Candlelight and Dirty Fingers, or Royal Virtue in Disguise: Some Thoughts on
Weyerman and Godfried Schalcken,” Simiolus 11 (1980): 23–38; and Peter Hecht, ed., De
Hollandse fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1989), 182–216.
8. For the dated genre pieces, see Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), nos.
143 (1667), 151 (1669), 160 (1682), and 168 (1690). To these we should perhaps add the© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 6 of 10

small painting of 1692 in Toronto; see entry GS-112, fig. 1. The history paintings date from1690, 1691 and 1700; see Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), nos. 10, 19,
34, 37, and 40–41.
9. Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), no. 47.
10. The canvas of 161 x 274.5 cm was painted in 1679; Gerard Lemmens and Peter B. M.
Sliepenbeek, De Vrede van Nijmegen (1678–1978) (Nijmegen, 1978), 59–64 with illustrations.
11. The exceptional engraving contains the thesis with which Louis-Nicolas and Louis-Francis Le
Tellier obtained their doctorates on 28 July 1684 at the Collège d’Harcourt in Paris; José
Lothe, L’oeuvre gravé de François et Nicolas de Poilly d’Abbeville, graveurs parisiens
du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1994), 236–37, no. 371 with illustration. In all likelihood Schalcken
knew this unique print through the Flemish engraver and art dealer Jan van der Bruggen(1649–ca. 1699), who was living in Paris in those years. Schalcken’s Recognition ofConstance (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) was taken to Paris by Van der Bruggen, who
never paid for it. This gave rise to a number of legal entanglements that occurred between
1688 and 1691; Peter Hecht, ed., De Hollandse fijnschilders: van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen vander Werff (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1989), 190–93. Van derBruggen and the engraver François de Poilly were next-door neighbors on Rue SaintJacques; José Lothe, L’oeuvre gravé de François et Nicolas de Poilly d’Abbeville, graveurs
parisiens du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1994), 373.
12. This is a small oval portrait of Françoisia, which, given its dark blue background, must be
dated to Schalcken’s London years, 1692–96. It was sold as the portrait of an anonymouslady by someone in the “Circle of Schalcken” at Christie’s in Amsterdam on 22 September
2009, lot 132 with color illustration. However, the portrait bears Schalcken’s monogram at thelower left center. Dr. Eddy Schavemaker and the present author identified the sitter as thewife of the painter on the basis of her portrait of 1706; Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken(Paris, 1988), no. 59 with color illustration. In fact, Françoisia’s ninth child, Godefridus, wasbaptized on 3 February 1697 in The Hague, which suggests that Schalcken and his family
had already left England by the end of 1696, since it stands to reason that he would not have
exposed his heavily pregnant wife to the dangers of such a journey.
13. Cf. 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 of Art; London, Dulwich Picture
Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2000), nos. 1, 3, 7, 20, and 29.
14. Henri Pauwels et al., Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Departement Oude
Kunst, inventariscatalogus van de oude schilderkunst (Brussels, 1984), 92, inv. no. 86.

Provenance© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 7 of 10

Private collection (sale, Christie’s, London, 18 April 1832, no. 57) [£2.2 to Pennell].
Giles Sebright, Bart (his sale, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1937, no. 130).
Private collection (sale, Christie’s, London, 4 March 1938, no. 66).
[Galerie Lingenauber, Düsseldorf, by 1988, unpaginated, with ill.].
[Galerie Edel, Cologne, 1988].
Private collection (sale, Hampel Fine Art Auctions, 8 December 2006, no. 310).
[Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam, 2006].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, “De Zichtbaere Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw inHollands oudste stad,” 29 November 1992–28 February 1993, no. 72.
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Fondation Corboud, “Wettstreit der Künste: Malerei und
Skulptur von Dürer bis Daumier,” 25 May–25 August 2002, no. 121.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, September
2009–September 2015 [lent by the present owner].
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, “Schalcken–Gemalte Verführung,” 25 September
2015–24 January 2016; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, 21 February–26 June 2016, no. 14[lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 8 of 10

References
Beherman, Thierry. Godfried Schalcken. Paris, 1988, 150–51, no. 54.
Marijnissen, Peter, Wim de Paus, Peter Schoon, and George Schweitzer, eds. De Zichtbaere
Werelt: Schilderkunst uit de Gouden Eeuw in Hollands oudste stad. Exh. cat. Dordrecht,
Dordrechts Museum. Zwolle, 1992, 267, no. 72.
Mai, Ekkehard. Das Kabinett des Sammlers: Gemälde vom XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhundert.
Cologne, 1993, 226–28, no. 90.
Mai, Ekkehard, and Kurt Wettengl. Wettstreit der Künste: Malerei und Skulptur von Dürer bis
Daumier. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Fondation Corboud. Wolfratshausen,
2002, 331, no. 121.
Neumeister, Mirjam. Das Nachtstück mit Kunstlicht in der niederländischen Malerei und
Graphik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Petersberg, 2003, 340 and 415, no. 16.
Schnackenburg, Sophie. “‘Studium’ und ‘Inspiratio’: Godfried Schalcken’s Gemälde‘Kunstbetrachtung bei Lampenlicht’ (um 1680/85) im Spannungsfeld ikonographischer
Tradition und zeitgenössischer Kunsttheorie.” Müncher Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 54(2003): 183–217, no. 1.
Franits, Wayne. Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: Its Stylistic and Thematic
Evolution. New Haven and London, 2004, 247–49, no. 227.
Cook, Nicole Elizabeth. “Eros, Intimität und Begehren in den Genrebildern von Godefridus
Schalcken.” In Schalcken – Gemalte Verführung. Edited by Anja K. Sevcik, 81-84. Exh. cat.
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Stuttgart, 2015.
Jansen, Guido M. C. “Ein Mann und ene Frau betrachten beim Schein einer Lampe eine
Venus-Statue, 1685-90.” In Schalcken – Gemalte Verführung. Edited by Anja K. Sevcik. Exh.
cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Stuttgart, 2015,
122-24, no. 14.
Cook,

NicoleElizabeth.

“From

AmorisCausa

toPygmalion’s

Creative

Dream:

Schalcken’s Young Man and Woman Looking at a Statuette by Lamplight and Theories ofLove in Art. Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 77 (2016): 127–43.
McCarthy, Alexa. “Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight.”
In Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos
and Dominique Surh 70, no. 25. Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Rembrandt and His Time: China and the Dutch Republic in theGolden Age.” In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Editedby Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 10; 15, no. 43. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National
Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
© 2020 The Leiden CollectionYoung Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 9 of 10

Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight.”
In Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara YeagerCrasselt, 106–7; 182, no. 43. Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum ofChina. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 118, 121.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Young Man and Women Studying a Statue of Venus.” In The Age of
Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina
Lyubimova, 206–7; 246, no. 70. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh.cat.
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage
Museum. Moscow, 2018.
Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden
Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 152–3, no. 73. [Exhibition catalogue also publishedin French and Arabic.]

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of coarse, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. All four tacking margins
have been almost entirely removed, and narrow remnants of primed fabric remain. Cusping along
the upper edge only suggests the support has been cut from a larger primed fabric. There is one
paper label but no wax collection seals, stencils, or import stamps along the lining or stretcher.
The fabric has been pre-primed with a gray ground followed by a light red ground applied below
the composition area. The paint is applied with thin layers of transparent glazes that refine theeffects of light and the transitions into shadow, and with broader scumbles along the folds of theartist’s proper right sleeve.
No carbon-based underdrawing or compositional changes are readily apparent in infrared images
captured at 900–1700 nanometers or in the X-radiograph.[1]A faint signature located in the lower right corner is visible in the X-radiograph but not undernormal light conditions or in infrared images.[2]The painting was cleaned and restored in 2008 and remains in a good state of preservation
despite areas of thinness and fine drying cracks through the background.[3]Technical Summary Endnotes© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Young Man and Woman Studying a Statue of Venus, by Lamplight
Page 10 of 10

1. Using an Indigo Systems Merlin Near Infrared camera, with a solid-state InGaAs (Indium
Gallium Arsenide) detector sensitive to wavelengths from 0.9 to 1.7 microns.
2. It may be a double signature.
3. Entry based on examination report written by Sophie Scully, graduate intern, Paintings
Conservation Department, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection