Schalken, Godfrey

, an ingenious painter, was born at Dort, in 1643. His father placed him first with Solomon Van Hoogstraten, and afterwards with Gerard Dow, from whom he caught a great delicacy of finishing; but his chief practice was to paint candle-lights. He placed the object and a candle in a dark room; and looking through a small hole, painted by day-light what he saw in the dark chamber. Sometimes he drew portraits, and came with that view to England, but found the business too much engrossed by Kneller, Closterman, and others. Yet he once drew king William; but, as the piece was to be by candle-light, he gave his majesty the candle to hold, till the tallow ran down upon his fingers. As if to justify this ill-breeding, he drew his own picture in the same situation. Delicacy was no part of his character: having drawn a lady who was marked with the small-pox, but had handsome hands, she asked him, when the face was finished, if she must not sit for her hands “No,” replied Schalken, “1 always draw them from my house-maid.” After carrying on his business for some time in England, he settled at the Hague, where he died in 1706. Some additional anecdotes of him may be found in our authority. ²