Rijksmuseum

Object data

black chalk, traces of white chalk, heightened with opaque white (oxidized), on paper toned light brown; framing line in black ink; verso: scribbles in black chalk

height 243 mm × width 182 mm

Technical notes

Watermark: None

Condition

Pasted in the album Figuurstudies I, fol. 79

Provenance

…; collection Pieter Kikkert (1775-1855), Leiden and Vlaardingen; by descent to Mrs E. Peereboom, Haarlem; from whom, with 242 drawings, fl. 80.000, to the museum, with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds, the Belport Familienstiftung and a contribution from the J.A.Z. Count van Regteren Limpurg Bequest, 1981

Object number: RP-T-1981-171

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds, the Belport Familienstiftung and a contribution from the J.A.Z. Count van Regteren Limpurg Bequest

The artist

Cornelis Bega (Haarlem 1631/32 - Haarlem 1664)

Baptized on 22 (?) January 1632, he was the youngest son of a prosperous Catholic family of artists in Haarlem. His father, Pieter Jansz Begijn (1600/05-1648), was a goldsmith, silversmith and sculptor, and his mother, Maria Cornelisdr (1611-1681), was the daughter of the renowned Mannerist artist Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638), half of whose estate (gold, silver, paintings, drawings and prints) she inherited. Bega was almost certainly named for his maternal grandfather. His brother Dominicus Jansz Bagijn (?-1636) was a carver, and several of his paternal forebears were civic architects, including his grandfather, Jan Pietersz Bagijn (?-1628), his great-grandfather Pieter Pietersz Bagijn (?-1600); and his uncle Claes Pietersz Bagijn (1558-1632), whose son (i.e. Bega’s cousin) was the still-life painter Willem Claesz. Heda (1594-1680), who took the name of his mother. Another cousin, on his father’s side, was the decorative painter Pieter de Grebber (c. 1600-1652/53).

According to Houbraken, Bega studied under Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685).¹ This was presumably before 24 April 1653, when he embarked on a journey through Germany, Switzerland and France, in the company of fellow Haarlemmers Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne (1628-1702) and Joost Boelen (?-?).² Bega was certainly back in Haarlem by September 1654, when he joined the Guild of St Luke, in which he was active for a decade, until 1664 (the year of his untimely death, probably from the plague).³ The costs of his expensive funeral at the church of St Bavo, Haarlem, were paid on 30 August 1664.⁴

As a painter, Bega was strongly influenced by the genre works of his teacher Ostade, but as a draughtsman he belonged to a distinctive group of Haarlem artists, including Gerrit Berckheyde (1638-1698) and Leendert van der Cooghen (1632-1681), who from the 1650s onwards developed a style of figure drawing – mostly single figure studies – characterized by highly precise delineation and sharp hatching.⁵ These studies were executed mostly in red chalk on white paper or black and white chalk on blue paper. Bega’s figure drawings can be recognized by their regular hatching, pronounced light and dark contrasts, and clearly demarcated forms.

Carolyn Mensing, 2019

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, I (1718), pp. 349-50; M.A. Scott, Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) as Painter and Draughtsman, 2 vols., Ann Arbor 1984 (PhD diss., University of Maryland); M.A. Scott in J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, 34 vols., London/New York 1996, III, p. 495; M.A. Scott, ‘Bega, Cornelis’, in J. Turner (ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Art: From Rembrandt to Vermeer. 17th-century Dutch Artists, London 2000, pp. 16-17; I. van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Cornelis Pietersz Bega’, in P. Biesboer and N. Köhler (eds.), Painting in Haarlem, 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 100-02; P. Biesboer, ‘Cornelis Bega (Haarlem, 1631-1664): Eine Biografie’, in P. van den Brink and B.W. Lindemann (eds.), Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten, exh. cat. Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum)/Berlin (Gemäldegalerie) 2012, pp. 25-29

Entry

Another version of this drawing, also presumed to be a copy, is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.⁶ Both copies appear to be after a study by Bega. The Amsterdam and Berlin drawings display minor errors in details of the rendering, which can be explained by the process of copying.

Scott suggested that the present copy was made by Reynier van Oost(er)zaen(en) (?-1690/1702), a follower of Cornelis Bega,⁷ with whom inv. no. RP-T-1981-161 has also been associated. It is unlikely, however, that the same copyist was responsible for both works. The folds are more emphatically drawn in the present sheet, which moreover lacks the small v-shaped accents evident in the other drawing.

In support of her suggestion, Scott linked the drawing of a Seated Man, Leaning on a Barrel with a painting attributed to Van Oosterzaen, which in 1923 was in the collection of A. Kay, Edinburgh,⁸ in which a figure of a man, in reverse, leans over to proposition a woman. A second, more extensive version of this painting was on the New York art market in 1994.⁹ Although the angle of the man’s body is similar, all other details – including the position of the head, hands and legs – differ. Van Oosterzaen’s subject-matter and painting style directly reflect the work of Bega, even if his figures are somewhat coarser and the rendering of texture less accomplished. He appears in the archives of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke between circa 1650 and 1702. A signed painting by him is in Museum Bredius, The Hague (inv. no. 188-1946).¹⁰

A far more compelling analogy is provided by the figure in another painting, whose current whereabouts are unknown, Tavern Scene with a Man Filling his Pipe, which was once with Kunsthandel Van Bohemen, The Hague.¹¹ Here the pose and angle of the figure are identical, though there are minor differences in the clothing, and the head has been turned into that of an older man. The painting is weak and may be a copy. Whether or not it and both the Amsterdam and Berlin versions of the chalk study are after lost originals by Bega cannot be determined at present.

Bonny van Sighem, 2000/Carolyn Mensing, 2019

Literature

M.A. Scott, Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) as Painter and Draughtsman, 2 vols., Ann Arbor 1984 (PhD diss., University of Maryland), pp. 251-52, 409, no. D140, fig. 338 (‘Circle of Bega, perhaps Oosterzaen,’ with incorrect inv. no.)

Citation

B. van Sighem, 2000/C. Mensing, 2019, 'copy after Cornelis Pietersz. Bega, Seated Man, Leaning on a Barrel, c. 1650 - c. 1700', in J. Turner (ed.), Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200536433

(accessed 11 December 2025 16:27:58).