# Rose Velderkaust — Short Fiction character guide

> Rose Velderkaust in Short Fiction by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Rose

**First appearance:** 0006-strange-event-in-the-life-of-schalken-the-painter

## Snapshot

The niece of Gerard Douw and the only love of the painter Schalken, whose face in his canvas seems less portrait than haunting record of something real.

## Who they are

Rose belongs to the household of her uncle Gerard Douw, where the young painter Godfrey Schalken studies and falls hopelessly in love with her. Her beauty fixes itself in his art so completely that viewers of his picture feel they are beholding not an ideal but a witnessed reality. She is the still center around which the story's mystery gathers, and the reason a painted scene of alarm and drawn sword can never be dismissed as mere invention.

## In the story

### [Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/strange-event-in-the-life-of-schalken-the-painter)

Gerard Douw's niece and Schalken's first love; she is betrothed to Vanderhausen and later appears as a spectral guide in Schalken's vision.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters/rose_velderkaust
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters