Cornelis Pietersz Bega

Heinrich Beckmann (1874-1940), Bremen (L.2756a),

his estate sale, Berlin, 27-28 February 1941, lot 26;

sale, Zürich, Koller, 29 March 2019, lot 3455;

Private collection, France

The use of black and white chalk on blue paper, the concentration on effects of light and shade, and the contrast between carefully worked and more cursorily delineated parts of the same figure, are all characteristics of Bega's distinctive graphic style. Unlike many of his contemporaries such as Jacob Backer, Govert Flinck and Jacob van Loo, Bega was not interested in nude studies, due in part to the fact that his painted oeuvre focused predominantly on interiors, making drapery and the fall of light his main priority – something clearly reflected in his drawings.

Like most of Bega's surviving drawings, neither of the accomplished studies to be found on the two sides of this substantial sheet can be directly connected with a known painting, but there are many parallels of type with painted figures, and the drawing style is, as Baukje Coenen has kindly confirmed, totally typical of the artist. For more information on Bega and his works, see the catalogue of the monographic exhibition, held in Aachen and Berlin in 2012.¹

1. Cornelis Bega, Eleganz und raue Sitten, exhib. cat., Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, and Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 2012