Young Woman Holding a Candle in a Bedchamber

Young Woman Holding a Candle in a Bedchamber

Nicholas Verkolje

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Verkolje, a painter of portraits and subject pictures active in Amsterdam, learned mezzotint printmaking from his father. In the present work, he reproduced a design by Schalcken, a Dutch painter and etcher celebrated throughout Europe for his depiction of artificial light. (During an extended sojourn in London, from 1692 to 1697, Schalcken famously painted King William III by candlelight.)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Young Woman Holding a Candle in a BedchamberYoung Woman Holding a Candle in a BedchamberYoung Woman Holding a Candle in a BedchamberYoung Woman Holding a Candle in a BedchamberYoung Woman Holding a Candle in a Bedchamber

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.