Godefridus Schalcken

For an artist who would emerge as one of Europe’s greatest masters of the latter seventeenth century, Godefridus Schalcken’s beginnings were comparatively modest. He was born in the village of Made (situated between the cities of Dordrecht and Breda) in the Dutch Republic in 1643, the third of eight children of Cornelis Schalcken (1610-1674), a Reformed minister, and his wife, Aletta Lydius (1612-1678), who hailed from a family of distinguished clergyman¹. In 1654, Cornelis moved his family to Dordrecht, where he assumed the position of headmaster of the city’s venerable Atheneum Illustre, otherwise known as the Latin School.

Godefridus must have manifested some nascent artistic talent at a young age, of sufficient quality to compel his parents to seek further training for him in this vocation. Around 1658–at the age of thirteen or fourteen-Schalcken began an apprenticeship with one of Dordrecht’s leading painters, Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678)². Additional training in Leiden would follow between 1662 and roughly 1665, under the renowned master, Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), who, like Van Hoogstraten before him, surely functioned as a role model for Schalcken in forging his identity and future goals as an artist. His earliest paintings date to the late 1660’s and early 1670’s and reveal his dependence particularly upon Dou’s prototypes. Yet, they also constitute an attempt on Schalcken’s part, already at the onset of his career, to transcend his erstwhile teacher’s work. This early period was also a time of experimentation for Schalcken, albeit conducted in a somewhat limited manner.

By the 1670’s, Schalken had created a flourishing portraiture practice, both in Dordrecht and in distant towns, and continued his production of innovative history paintings, that is, portrayals of biblical or mythological subject matter. However, depictions of everyday life, namely, genre paintings, would rapidly emerge as his principal subject matter during this decade. Many of Schalcken’s genre paintings from this period make rather bold and self-conscious claims concerning his artistic mastery, from the standpoints of both style and subject. They reveal a consistent pattern of inventiveness as well, no doubt a reflection, in part, of the artist’s desire to eclipse the achievements of his rivals. Such intentions likewise underlie his candlelight pictures, a specialty in which Schalcken was rapidly emerging as the painter of nighttime imagery nonpareil.

During the 1680’s, our artist’s continued production of candlelight scenes accounts in part for his rising international renown at that time–our picture of the Boy with a Fish likely dates to early in this decade³. Within just a few years, Schalcken’s fame had reached great heights abroad, with clientele in France, the Spanish Netherlands, and in various German principalities. Closer to home, ever-increasing commissions from high-ranking officials in the Dutch government in The Hague prompted Schalcken, ever cognizant of opportunities to ‘market himself’, to enroll in that city’s painters’ society, the Confrerie, in February of 1691, despite maintaining his Dordrecht residency. Our painter’s genre paintings, along with the history paintings he continued to create during this period, were continued to be innovative in subject and style and many were tinged with playful erotic overtones.

In the late spring of 1692, Schalcken and his pregnant wife, Françoisia van Diemen (1661-1744), embarked upon a four-year stay in London⁴. By this time, he had achieved his goal of international acclamation; his reputation preceded his arrival in that country’s capital. In London he would join a large coterie of foreign artists, many of whom had emigrated from the Low Countries, drawn by fortuitous cultural and economic factors that were slowly securing England’s position as one of Europe’s preeminent powers⁵. Early on, our master probably devoted much of his energy to creating genre paintings, especially those featuring candlelight settings, for he was already internationally renowned for such works. Gradually, he developed a network of clients that could augment his comfortable income and so turned to portraiture, a genre to which he would increasingly devote himself during the remainder of his years in London.

Upon returning to the Dutch Republic in 1696, the artist, his wife, and young daughter settled in The Hague, where he had frequently worked before his departure for England four years prior. During this last period of his activity–he died in 1706–Schalcken continued his ongoing quest to cultivate important patrons. He secured the patronage of the King of Denmark, Christian V (1646-1699), as well as that of Johann Wilhelm II of Düsseldorf (1658-1716), Elector Palatine, who bestowed upon him a gold chain in 1703 in honor of his services. Schalcken’s patronage by the august art collector and connoisseur, Johann Wilhelm II might be considered the culmination of his four-decade career. Yet, it can also be construed as just another in a long series of successes that our artist had enjoyed at an international level. Supreme talent paved his way, as did his relentless ambition to achieve success.