SCHALCKEN, Godfried

This genre scene depicts a man who has lit his pipe with a candle, in the background a man and a woman.

The painting has a pendant, ‘Every one his fancy’, exhibited in the same museum.

This genre scene depicts a boy spilling an egg and pointing to another boy who spoons porridge. An old man with beard and glasses and a child are watching. At the top right there is a paper with the English saying ‘Every one his fancy’.

The painting has a pendant, ‘Differing tastes’, exhibited in the same museum.

Night scenes like this were particularly popular amongst Dutch artists, and Schalken specialised in this subject. Although the exact meaning of the boy with a firebrand is not known today, it derived from a painting by the Italian artist Jacopo Bassano and was also enthusiastically adopted by El Greco, who incorporated the motif in his Allegory which is also in the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland. It is likely that Schalcken executed this painting for Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, while visiting Althorp during the period he spent in Britain.

This canvas is a beautiful example of Schalken’s nocturnal imagery. An artist and his model inspect a Hellenistic statue of a crouching Aphrodite by the light of an oil lamp.

The subject of this painting is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Met. 7:795-866). In Greek mythology, Cephalus and Procris are a young couple, newly married, whose love was destined to end in tragedy. Aurora, the goddess of dawn fell in love with Cephalus. He rejected her and she retaliated by planting in him seeds of suspicion concerning his wife’s faithfulness. A faun who was in love with Procris mischievously told her that he had overheard Cephalus talking to a secret lover while he was out hunting. To discover the truth Procris followed her husband into the forest and hid in the bushes. Cephalus, hearing the rustling of leaves, threw his spear and killed his wife.

The painting depicts the scene of the death of Procris. In his mythological and religious pictures, Schalcken favoured subjects that could be rendered as night scenes. In this genre he was influenced by his teacher, Gerrit Dou, and by Dou’s leading disciple, Frans van Mieris the Elder.

This painting probably was painted shortly after Schalcken’s return from England. The bosomy woman who is in the focus of her eager admirer’s attention is probably a prostitute. Consequently, the man’s gift is intended to purchase her temporary affections.

Godfried Schalcken studied with Gerard Dou in Leiden. This was around 1660, the period when Dou was concentrating on painting nocturnal scenes. These paintings, lit with scant candlelight, were universally praised; the representation of a light source and its associated reflections was regarded as a great artistic feat. The young Schalcken accepted the challenge and elected to specialise in scenes illuminated by candlelight, achieving an unequalled standard in this singular genre in a remarkable short space of time.

This painting is a fine example of Schalcken’s candlelit works. The subject is a mundane, domestic one: a girl, seated at a table, puts a piece of apple into her mouth. The scene is lit only by the flame of a candle. With extraordinary effectiveness Schalcken captured the phenomenon of the candlelight, with just a few reflections of the orange glow. Admirers wondered how the artist managed to pull off this feat. In the 18th century, an Englishman actually suggested that Schalcken had installed an enclosed cabin in his studio, lit only by a burning candle, where his model would sit. The painter was then said to have looked in through a peephole to paint the dimly lit scene.

Schalcken’s painting is not so minutely detailed as his teacher’s. This is evident from the rendering of the Turkish carpet in the foreground. Dou would have painted it down to the tiniest detail, but Schalcken depicted it in small, powerful strokes in bright red, blue and yellow. The illusion of real knotted wool is in no way diminished by this - Schalcken’s imitation of reality is at least as convincing as that of his illustrious predecessor.

Schalcken was a pupil of Samuel van Hoogstraten and subsequently of Gerrit Dou in Leiden. He initially painted in the meticulous and precise technique of his teacher Dou, a ‘Fijnschilder’ (meaning ‘fine painter’). Schalcken later abandoned fine painting, but continued to be captivated by Dou’s treatment of artificial light.

The grinning man in old-fashioned clothing, depicted in this etching, makes the gesture known at that time as “the fig”: the thumb is placed between the forefingers in mock imitation of coitus. The etching is inscribed “Quam meminisse invat” (Memories are such a delight), a reference to his fondest sexual liaisons.

The companion-piece of this portrait is the self-portrait of Godfried Schalken, the sitter’s husband. Schalken was trained by Gerrit Dou, and the two portraits follow Dou’s model. In these paintings the fashionable silks, brocades and Venetian lace are portrayed in meticulous detail. As the hand-on-heart gesture is associated with marriage vows, this double portrait was probably painted for the couple’s wedding in 1679.

In addition to producing scenes with artificial illumination for which he was famous, Schalcken was also a successful portraitist.

The painting, signed lower left, represents the portrait of an unidentified gentleman, standing half-length, wearing a blue orange-lined satin overcoat with white lace chemise, in front of a stone balustrade with a curtain, a park landscape beyond.

Godfried Schalcken turned to portraiture in 1676, using the half-length and knee-length variety introduced and mad fashionable by Bartholomeus van der Helst in the middle of the century, incorporating suitable accoutrements to indicate the sitter’s rank. This style of portrait, so popular in the last decades of the seventeenth century is represented by the present portrait.

The companion-piece of this self-portrait is the portrait of the artist’s wife, Fran�oise van Diemen. Schalken was trained by Gerrit Dou, and the two portraits follow Dou’s model. In these paintings the fashionable silks, brocades and Venetian lace are portrayed in meticulous detail. As the hand-on-heart gesture is associated with marriage vows, this double portrait was probably painted for the couple’s wedding in 1679.

The searching glow of candlelight and other artificial illumination was one of the effects for which this Dutch painter was most admired. The centuries-old northern realist tradition gleams in the precisely rendered glints of the brass candle holder.