Smith, John: A catalogue raisonné of the works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French painters: in which is included a short biographical notice of the artists, with a copious description of their principal pictures : a statement of the prices at which such pictures have been sold at public sales on the continent and in England; a reference the the galleries and private collections in which a large portion are at present; and the names of the artists by whom they have been engraved; to which is added, a brief notice of the scholars & imitators of the great masters of the above schools (Part 4) (London: Smith and Son, 1833)

266

GODFREY SCHALCKEN.

labours to the representation of the glimmering of a
candle.
His pictures, generally, represent fancy or familiar
subjects, composed of two or three figures, and these
are more frequently illumined by the light of a candle
or a lamp, than by that of day, as he had made the
former his exclusive study, and had attained therein
that degree of eminence, to which his pictures of day-
light effects by no means entitle him. Some few of this
artist’s best works are little inferior, in elaborate
finishing, to those of Gerard Dow, or Francis Mieris;
but in no instance did he attain that truth of colouring,
correctness of drawing, or exquisite beauty in the
material composing the dresses of his figures, and the
accessories of his compositions, which give such interest
and value to those masters’ works: even his candle-light
pieces, which at one period attracted such general
admiration, have doubtless lost much of the charm
they may have deservedly possessed, by the colours
having become too red, or coppery, to resemble
nature; and in those of his day-light pictures, too cold
and purple in the ssesh tints, to be agreeable: that
he spared neither labour nor study to attain the ut-
most perfection in his candle-light subjects, is evinced
by the method he is said to have pursued when painting
them. Having placed the model, from which he in-
tended to paint, in its proper position, and suitably illu-
mined it with either a candle, or a lamp, in a darkened
room, he looked through an aperture in the wainscot,
and thus performed his work in an adjoining apart-
ment.