BEGA Cornelis Pietersz

(Haarlem 1620 – 1664)

He was an engraver and Dutch painter son of Pieter Jansz Begijn, a talented goldsmith and silversmith (which changed its name to Bega) and Mary, the illegitimate daughter of the famous Mannerist painter Cornelis van Haarlem.

Cornelis Bega was a student of Adriaen Van Ostade from whom he derived the themes of peasant life in both paintings and engravings: popular scenes, interiors of taverns, drinkers and musicians, craftsmen at work and street vendors. He has also performed satirical works mainly directed to the bourgeois class of the time.

In 1654 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem. He travelled on horseback and by boat in a grand tour through great part of Europe to penetrate deeper into the intimate knowledge of village life, not limiting it only to that of his country. Although he did not reach the technical skills of Van Ostade, he was able to express, perhaps even better than the teacher, the intimate atmosphere and the psychological characteristics of the characters.

The style of his work has often taken up and imitated by many painters and engravers of the North.
At his death he was buried at the tomb of his grandfather Cornelis van Haarlem.