Girl with a Candle

after 1727

Follower of Godefridus Schalcken

oil on panel
36.83 x 29.84 cm
signed (erroneously) in red paint, lower rightcorner: “G. Schalcken.”
GS-101© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
Jansen, Guido. "Girl with a Candle." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Girl with a Candle
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Godefridus Schalcken received his first artistic instruction in Dordrecht in

Comparative Figures

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.[1] 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 (fig1).[2] From 1672 onward Schalcken is frequently documented in thearchives of Dordrecht, where he had probably returned by themid-1660s.[3]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 bothFig 1. Godefridus Schalcken,
Portrait of Gerrit Dou Wearing a
Beret; Bust, Full-Face to Left,
Holding a Roll of Paper, ca.
1665–70, etching, 16.5 x 12.1 cm,
The Leiden Collection, New York,GS-130versions of The Evening School.[4] Nevertheless, daylight genre
scenes—such as depictions of old women reading, quack doctors andmaidservants—dominated Dou’s oeuvre, and, similarly, Schalcken
produced mainly small daylight genre scenes and only occasionally
painted subjects with artificial illumination.[5]Schalcken did not begin to paint many nocturnal scenes until the late1670s.[6] In fact, only after 1685 did the percentage of his work devoted toartificially lit scenes grow significantly, although night scenes were neverso numerous as to represent the bulk of his oeuvre. The reason for
Schalcken’s growing interest in candlelit scenes was probably Dou’s deathin February 1675, which meant that Schalcken was the only master able tomeet the demand for top-quality depictions in this specific genre. In the1690s Schalcken displayed his mastery of this specialty in a series ofcandlelit 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 secondand socially most successful part of Schalcken’s 40-year career. Much aswith his self-portraits, the young woman in this painting holds a candle inher right hand as she turns to look at the viewer. Her long curly hair is tiedat 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
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Girl with a Candle
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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 thepainting 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.[7] The fact that paintings bearing Schalcken’s signature were madeafter his death is not unexpected. Schalcken’s widow, Françoisia vanDiemen (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 saleof a painting in 1733 to Johan Nicolaas (van) Hafften, the agent of theduke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. A municipal assessment of The Hague in
1742

indicatesthat“Francisca

vanDiemen,Wid(ow)

Schalke,rentenierster” had 3,000 guilders worth of income that year.[8] 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 executedby 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).[9]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.[10] A version
on copper, which was sold by the Kunsthalle in Hamburg after the FirstWorld War, was last recorded with a London art dealer in 1938.[11] Finally,a version on canvas was last documented in the early twentiethcentury.[12] Copper was the most expensive of these supports, and it isprobable that the version on copper, formerly in Hamburg, was
Schalcken’s autograph painting.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Girl with a Candle
Page 5 of 11-Guido Jansen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. Van Hoogstraten was active in London until the end of 1667.
2. The print is in George S. Keyes, Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, andWoodcuts ca. 1450–1700, ed. Karel G. Boon, 58 vols. (Amsterdam, 1949–), 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” The 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 Krytgetekent,

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, 6 (1884–87), 2, Schalcken was recorded as early as 1665 as pennantor 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, vervatende haar
begin, opkomst, toeneming, en verdere stant: Opgezocht, in ‘t licht gebracht, en vertoond,met vele voorname voorrechten, hand-vesten, keuren, en oude-herkomen; Als mede eenverzameling van eenige geslachtboomen, der adelijke, aal-oude, en aanzienlijke heerengeslachten, van, en in, Dordrecht, enz.; Zijnde de voornoemde beschryvinge, geçierd, enverrykt, met verscheyde kopre konst-platen . 2 vols. (Dordrecht, 1677), 1:688. Still, the firstmention 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 otherthings, 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 ofthe militia company] under the banner of the Nieuwstraat); see the protocol book of thenotary 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 bythis 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
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records can be found in the unpublished archival notes of Abraham Bredius, which arepreserved in the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands
Institute for Art History), Schalcken file. Considering its subject, this genre piece wasprobably 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) (Ph.D. diss., New York University,1990), nos. 81 and 110. See also Ronni Baer,Gerrit Dou, 1613–1675: Master Painter in theAge of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Galleryof Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis, 2000–1) (New Haven,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 the1670s. His pupils are Maria Schalcken (ca. 1645–before 1700), the artist’s sister, whoapparently studied with Godefridus around 1665–70; Anthony Vreem (1660–81), who waspresumably 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 mastersettled in The Hague. Antonie de Waardt initially studied with Simon van der Does until thelatter 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: Het Hoogsteder lexicon van alle schilders werkzaam in Den Haag (The Hague,1988). On De Waardt, see Abraham Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte
der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, 7 vols. (The© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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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 tobe the father of Johannes Vincentius, who was active as portraitist later in the eighteenth
century.
10. Thierry S. 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 thesignature, which reveals that this was another version of GS-101. The painting was part ofthe old holdings of the dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had perhaps acquired it fromthe 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 MecklenburgSchwerin; see my entry in Ekkehard Mai, Sander Paarlberg, and Gregor J. 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 S. 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
Winter Exhibition: Dutch and Flemish Portraits and Genre-Pictures of the 16th and 17th
Centuries, West’s Galleries (London, 1938), no. 21.
12. According to the documentation, the version on canvas (Thierry S. Beherman, Godfried
Schalcken (Paris, 1988), fig. 195b; Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné ofthe Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on theWork of John Smith, 8 vols. [London, 1907–27], 5: no. 222c) was still at Wilton House in
1907; see Neville Rodwell Wilkinson, Wilton House Pictures (London, 1907), no. 278 (47 x37.5 cm).

Provenance© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Girl with a Candle
Page 9 of 11[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.

References
Possibly Hofstede de Groot, Cornelius. 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 derWerke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols.
Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28. London, 1916, 5:374, no. 222a.

Versions
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 theWorks of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Workof 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
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Girl with a Candle
Page 10 of 1137.5 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.

Versions Notes

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular western European oak from a tree
felled after 1727, has bevels along all four sides.[1] The panel is unthinned and uncradled andhas 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.[2] The paint has been applied opaquely
and medium rich, which has allowed a fine network of drying cracks to form through the left sideof the background, along the figure’s cheek, chin and neck depicted in highlight, and along thehorizontal drapery folds below the figure’s neck.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers, andin 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 isundated.[3] 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.
1.

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2. Visible in small areas of loss along the center of the lower edge and a small loss along theleft 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.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection