James Stuart, Duke of Lennox andRichmond with his Greyhound byCandlelightca. 1692–96

Godefridus Schalcken(Made 1643 – 1706 The Hague)

GS-109oil on canvas
94.6 x 144.8 cm

How To Cite
Franits, Wayne. "James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound by Candlelight." InThe
Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive,
and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions areadded only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound byCandlelight
Page 2 of 9

Godefridus Schalcken may no longer enjoy the fame of his fellow Dutch

Comparative Figuresartists Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) and Johannes Vermeer (1632–75),
but he surely ranked among the most renowned painters of his own era. Bythe 1670s the young artist’s star had risen rapidly among cognoscenti as
an outstanding specialist in genre painting, and an accomplishedportraitist in his hometown of Dordrecht and elsewhere in theNetherlands.[1] Within just a few years, Schalcken’s renown had reachedtruly international heights, as he enjoyed patronage in France, the Spanish
Netherlands, and in various German principalities. During the last 15 yearsof his life he embarked upon international travels to satisfy the demands of
his ever-growing clientele and to augment his status as a renowned artist.
Schalcken initiated this enterprise in the late spring of 1692, when heresettled in London, where he would live and work for roughly the next fouryears.
During the late seventeenth century a sizable number of Dutch (andFlemish) painters relocated to London, one of the largest and most affluent
cities in Europe.[2] The Glorious Revolution of 1688 had brought the Dutch
stadholder William III and his wife, Mary, to the English throne, withFig 1. Anthony van Dyck, James
Stuart, Duke of Richmond andLennox, ca. 1633–35, oil oncanvas, 215.9 x 127.6 cm, NewYork, Metropolitan Museum ofArt, Marquand Collection, Gift ofHenry G. Marquand, 1889,89.15.16

auspicious prospects for persons who made their livelihoods in thecreative arts. The couple were very active in refurbishing such royalresidences as Hampton Court and Kensington Palace, and in patronizing
artists and collecting pictures.[3] Needless to say, members of theirextensive court, which naturally included a large Dutch contingent, offered
still more possibilities for employment among painters. Cultural conditions,and the economic ones that helped to engender them, thus made England
immeasurably attractive to Schalcken and other foreign artists.

Fig 2. Anthony van Dyck, JamesStuart, Duke of Lennox andRichmond, ca. 1636 oil on canvas
99.7 x 160 cm Kenwood, Iveagh
Bequest, London, © Historic
England Archive

Schalcken’s London period (1692–96) was a tremendous success,particularly for his portraiture, which attracted eager clients among theupper echelons of society, including the enormous English court. This
stunning nocturnal portrait surely ranks among the most extraordinary
works of this period in the artist’s career, for this portrait depicts not aliving person but a sitter who had died 37 years before the artist’s arrival inEngland. Schalcken based his image on a portrait of Stuart that Anthonyvan Dyck (1599–1641) had painted in the mid-1630s.[4]Schalcken has depicted James Stuart seated in a darkened interior withhis faithful greyhound sitting faithfully beside him (according to tradition,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound byCandlelight
Page 3 of 9

the dog saved his life during a boar hunt on the continent). Stuart was a
cousin of King Charles I (1600–49), who had appointed him Gentleman of
the Bed Chamber in 1625. In 1633 he was made a Privy Councillor anddesignated a member of the Order of the Garter. An ardent supporter ofthe royalist cause during the English Civil War, Stuart and his family madegreat sacrifices on its behalf. Stuart committed large sums of money to thedoomed king’s cause, and his two younger brothers were killed during theconflict.
The greatest artist associated with Charles I’s court, Anthony van Dyck
(1599–1641), immortalized Stuart in several memorable portraits. The
best known of those pictures, painted ca. 1633–34 in connection withStuart’s appointment to the Order of the Garter, hangs today in theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig 1).[5] Schalcken, however,closely modeled this work upon a ca. 1636 portrait of Stuart by Van Dyck
(fig 2), which presently belongs to the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood inLondon.[6]Schalcken transformed Van Dyck’s prototype into a night scene, changing
the sunset view to the left into a moonscape and, more prominently,
adding his signature motif, a glowing candle in a silver candlestick. The
lambent highlights on the candlestick glitter like pulsating jewels in thedarkness. Indeed, the astonishing execution of this motif and the related
light effects are all quintessentially Schalcken. The brilliant candlelightilluminates Stuart’s face, imparting to it a reddish glow. Sections of thepainting furthest away from the candle fade into almost monochrome,
thereby demonstrating Schalcken’s knowledge of how candlelightdiminishes the coloristic intensities of surrounding objects. The
mesmerizing appearance of his nocturnal pictures—or night pieces, as
they were enthusiastically termed at the time—explains in part the artist’s
tremendous success in London as both a portraitist and painter of genre
scenes. Apparently, the appeal of light effects of this sort was so strongthat the person or persons who commissioned this portrait of James Stuart
must have specified that Schalcken transform Van Dyck’s prototype into a
nocturne.
This painting raises a number of important questions, among them, wheredid Schalcken see Van Dyck’s original, and to whom did he sell his own
candlelit reinterpretation? Van Dyck’s portrait is listed in an inventory© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound by
Candlelight
Page 4 of 9compiled in 1659 of the art collection of Dorothy Percy (ca. 1598–1659),
countess of Leicester, stating that she had bequeathed it to her fourth andyoungest son, Henry Sidney (1641–1704), 1st Earl of Romney.[7] Since thecountess bequeathed this picture and not her husband, Robert Sidney(1595–1677), 2nd Earl of Leicester, who survived her, it is likely that either
Van Dyck had painted it for her, or that she had purchased it from its initialowner.
Henry Sidney inherited his family’s country home, Long Itchington in
Warwickshire, after his father’s death in 1677, but by that time, the young
man had already been living several years on Jermyn Street inLondon.[8] Presumably, Van Dyck’s portrait could be found at the Jermyn
Street residence until 1695, when Sidney moved to no. 16 St. James’sSquare.[9] Schalcken must have studied Van Dyck’s canvas at one ofthese locations. Upon Henry Sidney’s death in 1704 the bulk of his estate,including his art collection, was left to his great-nephew, John Sidney(1680–1737), 6th Earl of Leicester (from 1705).[10] Thereafter, the picture
returned to Leicester House (the London home of the earls of Leicester),where the famed English antiquarian George Vertue saw it in 1735.[11]The precise identity of the person (or persons) who commissioned
Schalcken’s portrait of Stuart cannot be determined with any certainty. It
would have been impossible for the 1st Duke of Lennox’s direct heir, EsméStuart (1649–60) to have commissioned this work since he died in 1660. A
more likely candidate is that Henry Sidney did so as a gift to a family
member or friend.[12] An inventory made of the art collection at Leicester
House in 1743, following the demise of Jocelyn Sidney (1682–1743), the7th Earl of Leicester and great-nephew of Henry Sidney, lists Van Dyck’sportrait of James Stuart but not Schalcken’s candlelit painting of it.[13] If
Henry Sidney had, indeed, ordered Schalcken’s version for his owncollection, then it would still have been hanging at Leicester House.
Regardless, the painting’s first owner must have harbored a certain
nostalgia for pre-Civil War England in general, and for James Stuart, theDuke of Lennox and Richmond, in particular.[14]- Wayne Franits© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound byCandlelight
Page 5 of 9Endnotes
1. Guido M. C. Jansen, “Ein Künstlerleben und seine Zeit,” in Schalcken: Gemalte Verführung,ed. Anja Sevçik (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, DordrechtsMuseum) (Stuttgart, 2015–16), 14–35, provides the most recent overview of Schalcken’s lifeand career.
2. For this phenomenon, see Sander Karst, “Off to a New Cockaigne: Dutch Migrant Artists in
London, 1660–1715,” Simiolus 37 (2013–14): 25–60.
3. This topic is addressed in, for example, Ben Broos et al.,Paintings from England: William III
and the Royal Collections (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (The Hague, 1988–89);
Robert P. Maccubbin and Martha Hamilton-Phillips, eds.,The Age of William III and Mary II:Power, Politics and Patronage 1688–1702 (Exh. cat. New York, The Grolier Club;
Washington D.C., The Folger Shakespeare Library) (Williamsburg, Va., 1988–89), 217–307;
Christopher Brown, “Patrons and Collectors of Dutch Painting in Britain during the Reign ofWilliam and Mary,” in Art and Patronage in the Caroline Courts: Essays in Honour of Sir
Oliver Millar, ed. David Howarth (Cambridge and New York, 2003), 12–31; Hugh Dunthorne,“William III in Contemporary Portraits and Prints,” in Redefining William III: The Impact ofthe King-Stadholder in International Context , ed. Esther Mijers and David Onnekink(Aldershot and Burlington, Vt., 2007), 263–76; and Koenraad Jonckheere, The Auction ofKing William’s Paintings (1713): Elite International Art Trade at the End of the Dutch
Golden Age (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2008), 17–26, passim.
4. Anja Sevçik, ed., Schalcken: Gemalte Verführung (Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-RichartzMuseum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Stuttgart, 2015–16), 226–28, cat. no. 54. The
following biographical information about Stuart was adopted from David L. Smith, “Stuart,James, Fourth Duke of Lennox and First Duke of Richmond (1612–1655),” in Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography (2004), accessed online 16 August 2016. See also JuliusBryant, Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest (New Haven and London, 2003), 51–52.
5. For Van Dyck’s portrait, see Susan Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of thePaintings (New Haven and London, 2004), 584–85, no. IV.200.
6. Susan Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings (New Haven andLondon, 2004), 586, no. IV.201; Julius Bryant, Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest(New Haven and London, 2003), 50–55, no. 6, where the picture is construed as aportrait
historié of Stuart as the doomed mythological hunter, Adonis. This was not the only instanceduring Schalcken’s London period that he based a painting on a work by a famous artist. He
also made a now-lost copy after a Madonna of Raphael for William Sykes (1659–1725), an
art dealer who seems to have been acquainted with Schalcken through the Virtuosi ofSaint Luke, an informal club consisting of artists and connoisseurs who met regularly in© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound by
Candlelight
Page 6 of 9London. This latter picture was lot 200 in A Catalogue of Mr. Sykes’s Extraordinary
Collection of Original and Other Pictures (London, 1724); see “The Art World in Britain 1660to 1735,” accessed online 22 August 2016. For the Virtuosi of Saint Luke, see IlariaBignamini, “George Vertue, Art Historian and Art Institutions in London, 1679–1768: A Studyof Clubs and Academies,” The Walpole Society 54 (1988): 21–44. The earliest years of theclub, namely 1689 to 1697, are rather murky, but it would continue until 1743. Thanks to theantiquarian George Vertue’s documentation, it is known that early on there were just16 members in the Virtuosi of Saint Luke, six of them artists (including Schalcken’scompetitors John Closterman and Michael Dahl). Guests were sometimes invited to theirgatherings, a practice that would continue throughout the club’s existence. Unfortunately, aperusal of Vertue’s spotty notes concerning the Virtuosi of Saint Luke does not yield
Schalcken’s name for the simple but unfortunate reason that his jottings only begin with theyear 1697. Schalcken returned to the Dutch Republic in 1696. Be that as it may, connections
can be made between Schalcken and two of the club’s leading members, William Sykes andRichard Graham, which suggests his knowledge of and possible involvement in its activities.
7. Susan Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings (New Haven andLondon, 2004), 586. For Henry Sidney, see David Hosford, “Sidney, Henry, First Earl ofRomney (1641–1704),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), accessed online on
17 August 2016; Michael G. Brennan, “Henry Sidney (1641–1704), Earl of Romney, andRobert Spencer (1641–1702), Second Earl of Sunderland,” in The Ashgate ResearchCompanion to The Sidneys, 1500–1700 , ed. Margaret P. Hannay et al., 2 vols. (Aldershotand Burlington, Vt., 2015), 1:169–76.
8. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, The Early History of Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Soho and
Their Neighborhood (Cambridge, 1925), 97.
9. T. S., “Sidney or Sydney, Henry,” in Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Sidney Lee, 66
vols. (London, 1885–1901), 52:219.
10. Arthur Collins, Letters of Memorials of State, 2 vols. (London, 1746), 1:175.
11. [George Vertue,] “Vertue’s Notebook A. q. [British Museum Add. MS. 23, 071],” TheWalpole Society 24 (1935–36): 81. That Van Dyck’s portrait had been returned to Leicester
House after Henry Sidney’s death is confirmed by the fate of the art collection belonging to
the house’s previous two occupants, his older brother, Philip Sidney, 3rd Earl of Leicester(1619–98), and his brother’s son, Robert Sidney, 4th Earl of Leicester (1649–1702). Overthe decades Philip Sidney had assembled an enormous collection containing some
2,000 paintings, prints, drawings, and antique statues, which were sold off to clear debts
first by his heir Robert Sidney and then by the latter’s heirs upon his own death. Thus, by1703 Leicester House was almost completed denuded of art. For Philip Sidney’s collection
and its dispersal, see Hilary Maddicott, “The Political and Cultural Career of Philip Sidney,Lord Viscount Lisle, Third Earl of Leicester, 1619–1698: Nobility and Identity in the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound byCandlelight
Page 7 of 9

Seventeenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., Birkbeck College, University of London, 2014), 195–203.
For Leicester House and its immediate environs, see Walter Thornbury and Edward
Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People and Its Places , 6 vols.
(London, 1887–93), 3:160–73; Susie West, “Penshurst Place and Leicester House,” inTheAshgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500–1700 , ed. Margaret P. Hannay et al.,
2 vols. (Aldershot and Burlington, Vt., 2015), 1:286–89.
12. Henry Sidney’s nephew (though they were the same age) was Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl ofSunderland (1641–1702), with whom he spent much of his youth; see Michael G. Brennan,“Henry Sidney (1641–1704), Earl of Romney, and Robert Spencer (1641–1702), Second
Earl of Sunderland,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500–1700 , ed.
Margaret P. Hannay et al., 2 vols. (Aldershot and Burlington, Vt., 2015), 1:169–76. Spencer
owned Schalcken’s Boy Blowing on a Firebrand (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland),
which might have inspired the former to commission the picture from Schalcken (or viceversa). The Leiden Collection owns a variant version of Schalcken’s Edinburgh painting; seeGS-106.
13. This inventory is preserved at the Kent History Centre, doc. no. U908/L23/19. It can also be
consulted online: “Inventory of Jocelyn Earl of Leicester at Soho Square, 1743,” The Art
World in Britain 1660 to 1735 (Kent History Centre U908/L23/19), accessed 15 September
2016.
14. As the Data Sheet accompanying the entry on this portrait explains, in the Sales Catalogs
Database of The Getty Provenance Index, Nicole Cook discovered two listings of lateeighteenth-century auctions in Paris that describe a portrait of a sitter at night, in half-length
caressing a dog (Paris, 9 December 1788, lot 137; Paris, 14 April 1791, lot 111). However,that sitter is identified as the Duke of Buckingham (presumably the famous 1st Duke ofBuckingham). It is certainly possible that the auctioneer misidentified the person portrayed;just such a case of mistaken identity could be reasonably expected in document that postdates the creation of the painting by nearly 100 years. Still, we must keep in mind that
Schalcken made several portraits of members of the English aristocracy by candlelight. Oneof these, representing the Duke of Grafton is now lost but is known from the inventory
compiled by the artist’s principal English patron, Sir John Lowther (1655-1700), 2nd Baronet(and from 1696, 1st Viscount Lonsdale) in 1696: Cumbria Archive Service, inv. no.
DLONS/L2/6. Therefore these auction descriptions could actually be describing a now-lost
portrait of the Duke of Buckingham.

Provenance© 2017 The Leiden Collection

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound by
Candlelight
Page 8 of 9

Possibly commissioned from Schalcken by Henry Sidney (1641–1704), 1st Earl of Romney;possibly Anne-Pierre, marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1739–98); (possibly sale, JeanBaptiste Pierre Lebrun, Paris, 9 December 1788, no. 137, as “le Duc de Bukingham” [for500 livres to Lebrun]; possibly sale, Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun, Paris, 14 April 1791, no.
111, as “Le portrait du Duc de Buckingham” [for 160 livres to Pierre-Joseph Renoult]).
Pablo Bosch (1862–1915), Barcelona, before 1915; by descent to his grandson Eduardo deSalas, Madrid.
[Rafael Valls, London, by 2007].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2007.

Exhibition History
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, “Schalcken–Gemalte Verführung,” 25 September
2015–24 January 2016; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, 21 February–26 June 2016, no. 54[lent by the present owner].

References
Franits, Wayne. “Porträt des James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond, mit seinem
Windhund bei Kerzenlicht.” In Schalcken–Gemalte Verführung. Edited by Anja K. Sevcik.
Exh. cat. Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Stuttgart,
2015, 226–28, no. 54.

Technical Summary
The painting was executed on a medium-weight, double weave fabric support. It has been lined,
but the tacking margins remain partially intact. The paint extends slightly onto all four tacking
margins. The ground appears to be off-white or light gray. Shalcken mostly applied the paint wetinto-wet and he employed glazes in the drapery and shadows. There are small inclusions in thepaint.
The painting has suffered a bit of wear. There are numerous small losses around the edges,
especially along the bottom. In addition, the paint and glazes have been abraded, particularly inthe sitter’s shirt and the drapery. These areas have been carefully inpainted.
© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

James Stuart, Duke of Lennox and Richmond with his Greyhound byCandlelight
Page 9 of 9

Technical Summary Endnotes© 2017 The Leiden Collection