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1 of 253523 objects
A Girl with a Candle Drawing aside a Curtain c.1670
Oil on panel | 32.6 x 25.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 404624
![A Girl with a Candle Drawing aside a Curtain A Girl with a Candle Drawing aside a Curtain](https://col.rct.uk/sites/default/files/styles/rctr-scale-1300-500/public/collection-online/5/b/60930-1292576527.jpg?itok=dLTB3m_e)
Godfried Schalcken (Made 1643-The Hague 1706)
A Girl with a Candle Drawing aside a Curtain c.1670
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This is a common device in Dutch art: the intimate encounter between a single figure and the viewer through some illusionistic enhancement of the picture frame (see also Rembrandt’s portrait of Agatha Bas, CW 162 405352 and Gerrit Dou’s figures at window frames, CW 43, 404621; CW 44, 404803 and CW 45, 404618). The point in all these cases is to suggest that the real world passes into the painted world without interruption. In the examples cited above the figure emerges through a painted frame; in this case she pulls aside a curtain, which similarly seems to lie just within the real frame of the painting. This creates the illusion that her candle (and only source of light) is projecting into our space. The suggestion of a bed-curtain, the fact that this is a night scene and the engaging expression of the young woman make this an encounter which would perhaps have been interpreted erotically. Signed bottom centre: 'G. Schalck.'
Provenance
Purchased by George IV from Lord Charles Townshend in 1819; recorded in the store at Carlton House in 1816 (no 561) and 1819 (No 550, valued at 350 guineas); in the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace in 1841 (no 96)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on panel
Measurements
32.6 x 25.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
50.0 x 42.4 x 7.0 cm (frame, external)
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