BEGA. The Singer.

Etching. 110x75 mm. Trimmed within the platemark. Glued to the corners on cardboard. Good specimen. 

Rare. British Museum: “A standing man singing whilst holding a sheet of paper, a boy and an old man in a fur cap onlooking at right, two other indistinct figures make up the group.”

Cornelis Pietersz Bega, or Cornelis Pietersz Begijn (1631/1632 - 27 August 1664) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver. Bega was born, lived and worked in Haarlem and was the son of sculptor and goldsmith Pieter Jansz. Begijn. His mother Maria was the illegitimate daughter of the Haarlem painter Cornelis van Haarlem. He assumed the name Bega when he started working professionally. He was a student of Adriaen van Ostade, and produced genre scenes of similar subjects, typically groups of a few peasant figures, often in interior settings, or fanciful figures.