© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Boy Offering Grapes to a Woman
Page 2 of 7Boy Offering Grapes to a Woman
Maria Schalcken(Made? 1645/50 – before 1700 Dordrecht)

ca. 1675–82
oil on panel
35.6 x 26.7 cm
signed, upper left: “Schalcken . F.”
GS-113

How to cite
Jansen, Guido. “Boy Offering Grapes to a Woman” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur
K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (archivedDecember 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

This painting, which has always been attributed to Godefridus Schalcken

Comparative Figures(1643–1706), shows a young woman in sumptuous dress, sitting in front of a red
curtain and seen from the knees upward. In her left hand she holds a closed fan, while
reaching out with her right hand toward a bunch of grapes in a large wicker basket
filled with white, red and blue bunches of this delicacy, which a boy offers her. In theright background is a view of a walled garden with an impressive fountain and talltrees, beyond which high mountains rise. The signature “Schalcken . F” at the upper
left appears in a piece of blue sky where the curtain sags. Not only is this a rather
unusual place for Godefridus Schalcken to have put his signature, but the absence of
his first initial, G, is certainly uncommon.
A comparison of this painting with works considered typical of Schalcken reveals
additional anomalies. The detailing of the woman’s clothing and particularly thewicker basket is somewhat hard and lacks the soft touch we expect to see from thisFig 1. Maria Schalcken, Self-Portrait
at the Easel, 1662–99, oil on panel,
39.6 × 31.6 cm, Eijk and Rose-Marievan Otterloo Collection

master. The anatomy of the boy’s head is not entirely correct, and a backgroundlandscape with a mountainous vista appears nowhere else in Schalcken’s oeuvre. The
painting therefore seems to have been produced in Schalcken’s studio by a pupil or an© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Boy Offering Grapes to a Woman
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assistant.
The attribution of the painting can be pinpointed more exactly thanks to the capital Fin the signature. This signature, as well as its placement, is identical to that on Maria
Schalcken’s Self-Portrait at the Easel, now in the Van Otterloo collection (fig 1).[1]Though Godefridus occasionally placed an F after his name as an abbreviation forfecit, he did so using a small S-like letter.[2] On Self-Portrait at the Easel, not only did
Maria sign her name in full, but she also wrote the same capital F we find on thepresent painting. The space in front of the signature on Boy Offering Grapes to aWoman is, moreover, large enough to have accommodated Maria’s Christian name.
Thus it is reasonable to assume that it was not Godefridus, but rather Maria—hissister and pupil (and junior by several years)—who painted Boy Offering Grapes to a
Woman, even if her brushstrokes are somewhat broader and less accomplished than in
her Self-Portrait at the Easel. The absence of Maria’s Christian name in the signature
could then be blamed on a former owner, who evidently thought it might prove more
profitable to let it pass for a work by Godefridus.
Maria Schalcken presumably studied with her brother from 1665 to 1670, after hehad completed his training in Gerrit Dou’s studio and returned from Leiden toDordrecht, where he moved back in with his parents in the Nieuwstraat (see GS-101).[3] She thus became Godefridus’s first pupil (see GS-106). A century and a half ago,
her work had already been described by Immerzeel as rare.[4] Her painting careercannot have lasted very long, and she would never have had to paint for a living. It is
likely that after her marriage in 1682 to the Dordrecht merchant Severijn van Bracht(b. 1658), she never touched her brushes again, because one year later she gave birth
to a daughter, Anna, and in 1685 to a son, Cornelis.[5] Van Bracht had his banns readagain in July 1700, so by then he must have been a widower and Maria must havedied some time before that. Therefore, Maria’s painting activities should be placed
mainly in the 1670s.[6]In addition to Self-Portrait at the Easel, there is one other known painting by Maria’shand, Interior with a Young Lady Seated, Powdering Her Hair, a small panel
documented in 1979 in the London art trade.[7] Furthermore, there are a number oflistings of paintings by her in old sale catalogues. These refer to two genre pieces,Woman at Her Toilet, Eating Comfits (Een Vrouwtje dat voor haar Toilet sit
Confituuren eetende) and Drunken Woman and a Young Boy in a Room (Een dronk
Wyf en een Jongetje in een Vertrek), as well as the aforementioned Young Lady
Seated.[8]- Guido Jansen, 2017
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. Frederik Duparc et al., Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van
Otterloo Collection (exh. cat. Salem, Peabody Essex Museum; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts) (New Haven, 2011), 279–81, no. 57, with outdated
biographical information. For a more up-to-date biography of Maria, see the online note by Marloes
Huiskamp.
2. Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), nos. 104, 130, 131, and 149. According toBeherman, the signature on his no. 4, the Holy Family in Frankfurt, is followed by a capital F, butillustration no. 457 in Mirjam Neumeister and Leon Krempel, Holländische Gemälde im Städel
1550–1800, 3 vols. (Petersburg, 2005), 3: 408, shows it to be a lowercase F. According to the RKD(Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) website,
Schalcken’s Self-Portrait, now in the Dordrechts Museum (RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische
Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) kunstwerkno. 13042), bears a capital F, but in thiscase, too, Schalcken in fact used the small s-like letter F. As far as I could discover, these are the only
instances in which Schalcken signed his work with an F after his name.
3. Cornelis Schalcken (1610–74) and Aletta Lydius (1612–after 1674) married in Heusden in 1636 andwould have eight children: Balthasar (1637–79), Anna (1638–80), Godefridus (1643–1706), Maria (ca.
1645–before 1700), Cornelis (ca. 1650–1709), Aletta (1654–1700), Barbara (ca. 1655–1709), andJohannes (1660–1724).
4. Johannes Immerzeel, De levens en werken der hollandsche en vlaamschkunstschilders, beeldhouwers,graveurs en bouwmeesters, van het begin der vijftiende eeuw tot heden…, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1842–43),
3: 59.
5. Maria and Severijn had their banns read on 26 July 1682, which means that the marriage must havetaken place several weeks later. Gemeentearchief Dordrecht (now the Regionaal Archief Dordrecht),
ONA 20.243 (unnumbered). This date is not provided in the online note by Marloes Huiskamp.
6. Professor Peter Klein, who subjected the current painting to dendrochronological examination in July
2012, came to the conclusion that “an earliest felling date can be derived for the year 1640. . . . With aminimum of 2 years for seasoning an earliest creation of the painting is possible from 1642 upwards.
Under the assumption of a median of 17 sapwood rings and 2 years for seasoning a creation is plausible
from 1652 upwards.” Apparently it was more than 20 years before the panel was actually put to use.
7. Thierry Beherman, Godfried Schalcken (Paris, 1988), 47 (ill.). Royal Academy of Arts, Trafalgar
Galleries at the Royal Academy II (exh. cat London, Trafalgar Galleries at the Royal Academy of Arts)(London, 1979), 46–47, with color illustration; oil on panel, 36.2 x 26.2 cm. The work is signed in full“Maria . Schalcken . F .” in the lower left-hand corner, exactly as on her Self-Portrait.
8. The woman eating comfits (oil on panel, approx. 50 x 40 cm) was first recorded at the sale in The Hague© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Boy Offering Grapes to a WomanPage 5 of 7of the collection of Seger Tierens, 23 July 1743 (lot 167); on 21 May 1790 the piece was put up forauction

againinTheHague(lot165);

RKD(Rijksbureauvoor

Kunsthistorische

Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) excerpts nos. 1483885 and 1483896. The drunkenwoman on a panel of approximately the same dimensions first surfaced at the sale on 7 November 1768
in Dordrecht (lot 7) and was later included in the sale of the Cornelis van Heemskerck collection, which
was held on 18 November 1783 in The Hague (lot 13). It subsequently belonged to the Jacques Bergeon
collection, which was auctioned off on 4 November 1789 in The Hague (lot 59); RKD (Rijksbureauvoor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) excerpts nos. 1483891,1483894, and 1483892, all with much more detailed descriptions of the painting than the one given in
the 1768 catalogue. The portrait of a young girl (oil on panel, 28 x 21 cm) was part of the collection ofCount F. de Robiano, which was sold in Brussels on 1 May 1837 (lot 594). The same painting wasdescribed in detail in July 1922 by Hofstede de Groot, who also noted that an attempt had been made topass

itoff

as

theworkofGodefridus;

RKD(Rijksbureauvoor

Kunsthistorische

Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History) excerpts nos. 1483888 and 1483895.

ProvenancePossibly Arthur Kay, Glasgow (his sale, Christie’s, London, 11 May 1911, no. 224, as by Godefridus
Schalcken [to Roos for £12.12]).[1](Sale, Sotheby’s, Monaco, 2 December 1989, no. 319, as by Godefridus Schalcken [for 721,500 francs].
[Richard Green Fine Paintings, London, 1992 (sale, Christie’s, London, 23 April 1993, no. 8, as byGodefridus Schalcken).]Dr. Hinrich Bischoff, Bremen and Berlin, until 2005; on consignment with Galerie Heide Hübner,Würzburg, June 1993–March 1994, as by Godefridus Schalcken; on consignment with Klaus Edel,
Cologne and London, 1995, as by Godefridus Schalcken (sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 15 June 2006, asby Godefridus Schalcken).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006..

Provenance Notes

1. The sale of Arthur Kay’s collection in 1911 included A Boy and Girl, with a Dish of Fruit, oil on canvas,
41.9 x 33 cm. Hofstede de Groot subsequently included this listing in his entry. However, the Leiden
Collection work is on panel and measures 35.6 x 26.7 cm. It is possible that the Arthur Kay painting
represents an unknown prototype or variant by Godefridus Schalcken.

Exhibition History© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Washington, D.C., The National Museum of Women in the Arts, on loan with the permanent collection,
1 August 2018–10 October 2019 [lent by the present owner].
Washington, D.C., The National Museum of Women in the Arts, “Woman Artists of the Dutch GoldenAge,” 11 October 2019–5 January 2020 [lent by the present owner].
Washington, D.C., The National Museum of Women in the Arts, on loan with the permanent collection,
6 January–31 July 2021 [lent by the present owner].

References
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, 5:358, no. 169a. London, 1913 (as by Godefridus Schalcken).
Hübner, Heide. “Junge Frau mit Pagen.” In Alte Meister. Old Master Paintings. Kunsthandel HeideHübner. Sales cat. Galerie Heide Hübner, Würzburg, 1993, 18–19 (as by Godefridus Schalcken).
Sevcik, Anja K., ed. Schalcken–Gemalte Verführung. Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum;
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Stuttgart, 2016, 116.

Technical Summary
The support is a single oak board from Western Germany or the Netherlands. Dendrochronological analysis
indicates an earliest-possible creation date of 1642, with a more plausible date of 1652 onward.[1] The panel
retains its original beveled back and measures about one half inch at the thickest point. On the reverse are
two labels, two wax seals, and an inscription in black that reads “DxDx.” The panel, with the grain oriented
vertically, has a mild convex warp. The edges do not appear to have been trimmed.[2]The panel was prepared with an off-white ground, followed by a brick-red colored priming layer.[3]Examination with infrared reflectography did not reveal any underdrawing.[4]The paint was applied with softly blended brushstrokes, allowing the artist to distinguish between textures.
Impastoed paint was employed sparingly to emphasize details such as the woven basket bearing the grapes
and the white ruffles of the woman’s dress. A warm brown underpaint was used to sketch thinly in someareas of the initial composition beneath the body color. There is a small pentimento above the woman’s headthat relates to a change in her head covering.[5]The painting is generally in excellent condition. There is some minor craquelure in the dark brown passages,revealing the red priming below. There are also some vertical cracks, following the grain of the wood, thatappear raised in raking light but are stable.[6]© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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Technical Summary Endnotes

1. Wood identification and dendrochronological analysis completed by Peter Klein, Hamburg University,
23 July 2018. “The youngest heartwood ring was formed out in the year 1633. Regarding the sapwood
statistic of Western Europe an earliest felling date can be derived for the year 1640, more plausible is afelling date between 1640 [and] 1650 [or] 1656 + x. With a minimum of two years for seasoning anearliest creation of the painting is possible from 1642 upwards. Under the assumption of a median ofseventeen sapwood rings and two years for seasoning a creation is plausible from 1652 upwards.”
2. It is difficult to confirm, as 3/8-inch-thick wood strips have been tacked onto all four edges.
3. There may be a thin light gray priming layer between the white ground and the red layer.
4. The painting was scanned using a Merlin Indigo InGaAs near-infrared camera with a StingRay macrolens customized for the wavelengths covered by the camera, 0.9 to 1.7 microns, July 2018.
5. This is only somewhat apparent in normal viewing conditions.
6. Entry based on a 2018 examination report by Sophie Scully, Paintings Conservation Department,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection