by Guido Jansen

Thierry Beherman's monograph on the Dordrecht artist Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) appeared posthumously in 1988. One of the merits of this book, which I found otherwise somewhat disappointing, is the attention it devotes at long last to Schalcken's works on paper, undoubtedly the least known aspect of this prolific artist's oeuvre.[1] Only Rudolf Juynboll had previously published a few of the artist's drawings, almost half a century earlier.[2] Beherman managed to assemble a small corpus, just over 30 sheets, some executed with pen and ink, others with red or black chalk.[3]

Remarkably enough, the drawings are almost exclusively portraits, and as Beherman shows in several examples, many of them can be linked to paintings. Schalcken apparently reached for a sheet of paper whenever he received a portrait commission. He must have started to produce these drawings when he established himself as a portrait painter, in the late 1670s. Thus the earliest example Beherman cites is a drawing in black chalk on blue paper in the Hamburg Kunsthalle, which the artist made in preparation for his Portrait of Pieter de la Court (1618/20-1685), dated 1679, in Leiden's Lakenhal Museum.[4] The present article adds four more studies to Beherman's list, all of them likewise related to paintings.

The previously unpublished sheet with the Portrait of Govert van Slingelandt (1623-1690) must have originated in 1678, in other words a year earlier than the portrait of De la Court (fig. 1). This large red chalk drawing is a study for the painting that used to belong to the De Geus van den Heuvel Collection in Nieuwersluis.[5] The sheet forms part of the so-called "Album van Slingelandt," which the Van Tets family has loaned to the archive of the Hoge Raad van Adel (College of Arms) in The Hague.[6] Though unsigned, it is altogether characteristic of Schalcken's rather dry draftsmanship with its many diagonal hatchings. The date of 1678 is proposed because the sheet was partly copied by the eighteenth-century portraitist Mattheus Verheijden (1700-after 1776) of The Hague, who noted the sitter's age and the year the drawing was executed on his own sheet: "AEtatis 55. A° 1678" (fig. 2). Washed with Chinese (or Indian) ink, Verheijden's drawing is also preserved in the "Album van Slingelandt," as is a second copy after Schalcken's portrait by Verheijden (fig. 3). In the latter the Hague artist faithfully followed the original, adding only the Van Slingelandt coat of arms in the lower right corner.

To complement this picture Schalcken also painted the sitter's second wife, Aarnoudina van Beaumont (1635-1702), who married Van Slingelandt in 1661.[7] Though this pendant has been missing since 1846, another drawing that Verheijden copied after Schalcken gives us an idea of its appearance (fig. 4). Curiously enough, the copyist's annotation - "anno 1676 aet. 41" - indicates that Schalcken painted Aarnoudina van Beaumont two years earlier than her husband.

1. Godfried Schalcken, Govert van Slingelandt (1678), red chalk, 44.0 x 33.5 cm. The Hague, Hoge Raad van Adel


2. Mattheus Verheijden after Schalcken, Govert van Slingelandt, drawing washed with Chinese (or Indian) ink and heightened with yellow and brown, 23.6 x 15.0 cm. Signed underneath the drawing on the right: "M. Verheijden. pinx:". The Hague, Hoge Raad van Adel


3. Mattheus Verheijden after Schalcken, Govert van Slingelandt, black chalk on blue paper heightened with white, 43.5 x 32.5 cm. Signed on the back: "M. Verheijden Excudit/ Haga." The Hague, Hoge Raad van Adel