A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1481. A PHILOSOPHER.

Cornelis Pietersz Bega (Dutch: 1620-1664).

This painter, who lived and died at Haarlem, was the son of a sculptor and a pupil of Adrian van Ostade. "Though," says Havard (p. 148), "a more finished draughtsman, with more regard for grace of form and for the beauty of his figures, in all other respects he was very inferior to Ostade. When we notice his dry and heavy execution, his ruddy flesh-colouring, and his opaque shadows, we are surprised that he should have so far neglected the examples placed before him."

This picture, executed throughout with extreme care and finish, is signed, and dated 1663.