In his own day, Godefridus Schalcken (1643—1706) was an internationally renowned Dutch painter, but little is known about the four years that he spent in London. Using newly discovered documents, this book provides the first comprehensive examination of Schalcken’s activities there. The author analyses Schalcken’s strategic appropriations of English styles, his attempts to exploit gaps in the art market, and his impact on tastes in London’s milieu. Five chapters survey his art during these years, concluding with a critical catalogue of all his London-period work.

"Investigating newly discovered documents, Wayne Franits analyzes how Schalcken accommodated himself to English taste and art markets, and in turn how he influenced them as well. [...] This book, finally, says as much about art and patronage in England on the cusp of becoming Great Britain as it does about the successful career of a Dutch painter both there and further abroad."
- Larry Silver, University of Pennsylvania, Sixteenth Century Journal LII/2 (2021)

"The 1690s are a fascinating but little-studied moment in the transformation of London's art trade and this short book, which makes extensive use of newly-available archival sources, is a welcome attempt to make sense of the time the leading Dutch painter Godfried Schalcken (1643-1706) spent in the city between 1692 and 1696. Wayne Franits describes convincingly Schalcken's attempts to establish himself in London."
- Richard Stephens, The Burlington Magazine (2019)

"Franits here identifies Schalcken's key English patrons, and gives an entirely convincing account of the ways in which his art responded to their demands. His original archival work clarifies the patterns of patronage operating at that time. This material has not been seriously investigated before. Well-researched, thorough, and well-written."
- Christopher Brown, Professor of Netherlandish Art, University of Oxford

Wayne Franits is Distinguished Professor of Art History at Syracuse University. Among his numerous publications are monographs on Dirck van Baburen and Johannes Vermeer and an edited volume of historiographical essays on Dutch seventeenth-century art.