Godfried Schalcken
Godfried Schalcken (8 October 1643 – 16 November 1706) was a Dutch artist who specialized in genre paintings and portraits. Schalcken was noted for his night scenes and mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight. He painted in the highly polished style of the Leiden fijnschilders.
Also recorded as Godefridus Schalcken · Godfried Scalken · Godfried Schalchon · Godfried Scalk
Godfried Schalcken
Godfried Schalcken · Self-photographed, JoJan, 2014-05-14 13:29:51 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Born
- 1643. · Dordrecht.
- Died
- 1706. · The Hague.
- Nationality
- Dutch Republic.
- Occupation
- painter.
- Fields
- painting.
- Teachers
- Gerrit Dou and Samuel van Hoogstraten.
- Known for
- Portrait of Stadholder-King William III (1650- 1702), Lady at a Mirror by Candlelight and The Chastity Lesson.
- Languages
- Dutch.
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Documentary summary
Godfried Schalcken (8 October 1643 – 16 November 1706) was a Dutch artist who specialized in genre paintings and portraits. Schalcken was noted for his night scenes and mastery in reproducing the effect of candlelight. He painted in the highly polished style of the Leiden fijnschilders.
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Authority files
wikidata · Q874868 · wikipedia · Godfried Schalcken
In this article
Life and work
Life and work
Training under Gerrit Dou and Samuel van Hoogstraten is recorded. Justus van Bentum is recorded as having studied under Godfried Schalcken. The recorded working language is Dutch. The field of work recorded is painting. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are Dordrecht, Leiden and The Hague. Works named in the authority record are Portrait of Stadholder-King William III (1650- 1702), Lady at a Mirror by Candlelight and The Chastity Lesson. Work by Godfried Schalcken is recorded in the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Städel Museum, Museo del Prado, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and J. Paul Getty Museum.
Godfried Schalcken was born in Made, North Brabant, the son of Cornelis Schalcken and Aletta Lydius. Before he was four years old, his family moved to Dordrecht, where his father became rector of the Latin school. Schalcke studied under Samuel van Hoogstraten in Dordrecht before he moved to Leiden, into the studio of Gerard Dou (1613–1675), one of Rembrandt's most famous pupils. His earlier genre pictures very closely resemble Dou's work. He worked in Leiden until c. 1675, then returning to Dordrecht until 1691, after which he settled in The Hague, where he continued to paint until his death in 1706. He also visited England (1692–1697), but his uncouth manners and bad temper alienated him from the society there. In 1703 he was employed by Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf. He died in The Hague.
Work
Work
Schalcken painted several portraits, of which the half-length of William III of England, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is a good example. Like Dou, Schalcken specialized in small scenes lit by candlelight, a format favored by the Leiden fijnschilders. Examples are in Buckingham Palace, the Louvre, Vienna and Dresden. His painting, Lady, Come into the Garden (Buckingham Palace), was singled out by Schalcken's pupil and Dutch artistic biographer Arnold Houbraken as representative of his oeuvre. Other good examples are Old Woman Scouring a Pan and Soldier Giving Money to a Woman (London, National Gallery), Ceres Seeking Proserpine and Old Man Writing (Louvre), Woman (National Museum of Serbia), Girl Blowing Out Taper (Munich), Girl Reading Letter (Dresden Gallery), The Boy Angling (Berlin); and Toilet by Candle (The Hague). The Buckingham Palace collection also possesses an interior by Schalcken. His history paintings are less-well known. His pupils were Arnold Boonen, Godefridus Callenfels, Simon Germain, Carel de Moor, Richard Morris, Arent Pijl, his cousin Jacob Schalcken, his sister Maria Schalcken, and Anthony Vreem.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1643
Godfried Schalcken born at Dordrecht.
1706
Godfried Schalcken died at The Hague.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Dordrecht.
Birth place
The Hague.
Death place
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q874868: Godfried Schalcken
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Godfried Schalcken”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly publication
- Schalcken, Godfried (gotfried, Goffried) Comelisz, Painting of the Golden Age, 1993
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 1993
In literature
The atmospheric work of Schalcken provided the inspiration for Sheridan Le Fanu's gothic horror story "Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter", which was adapted as Schalcken the Painter, and broadcast by the BBC on 23 December 1979 as part of its Omnibus series.

Identificatie Titel(s): Portret van Godfried Schalcken
Rijksmuseum

Den Haag - Mauritshuis - Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) - A Useless Moral Lesson c. 1680-1685 - RAW Developing by DxO Photolab 4
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Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Rijksmuseum. Facetten der Verzameling. 1. 72. 1886.
- 2.Home Godfried Schalcken. rkd.nl.
- 3.BFI Screenonline: Schalcken the Painter (1979). screenonline.org.uk.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 2
- Complete text of Sheridan Le Fanu's short story
- DeGroot, Catalogue of Dutch Painters (New York, 1913)
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Schalcken, Godfried (gotfried, Goffried) Comelisz, Painting of the Golden Age, 1993Crossref registry
Verifiedreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q874868: Godfried SchalckenWikimedia Foundation
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
A further 1 witness is held back from this article because the person or object named in it is not yet resolved to this record. They are kept, not discarded, and return once the identity is established.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Paintings
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