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Lot Essay
Grandson of famed Mannerist artist Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, Cornelis Bega was born into the celebrated artistic community in the culturally rich city of Haarlem. According to biographer Arnold Houbraken, he studied with Adriaen van Ostade, and may have visited Italy early in his career, as a drawing inscribed 'Bega Romae' would seem to indicate (Weimar, Schlossmusuem, inv. 4763; see P. Sutton, Masters of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, exh. cat., Philadelphia, 1984, p. 132). Bega is documented as traveling to Germany and Switzerland in 1653 before becoming a member of the Haarlem guild the following year. His oeuvre is distinctive for the varied techniques he employed, for in addition to being a highly accomplished painter, he was also a prolific draftsman and unusually inventive printmaker who may have been the first Dutch artist to make monotypes.
Painted in the vertical format which Bega favored, the present work depicts a seated, barefoot young woman playing a cittern, a stringed instrument related to a mandolin. Clearly knowledgeable about music, Bega positioned the fingers of the woman's left hand on the cittern's neck as though playing a chord, with her right hand poised to pluck the strings. Behind, a carved wooden table is piled with books, a jar and a swarm, a woodwind instrument common in Bega's imagery; an overturned lute is also visible nearby. The woman's turban and richly colored drapery are not typical of 17th-century Dutch attire, thus introducing an exotic element. Their shimmering surfaces and almost sculptural folds recall Bega's numerous studies of drapery and figures on paper, which were likely based on observation of live models (see P. Schatborn, Dutch figure drawings from the seventeenth century, exh. cat., The Hague, 1981, pp. 105-107).
While the still-life elements and the figure's costume are rendered in minute detail, the setting is by contrast more generalized, a darkened interior dominated by a reddish curtain gathered to one side at upper right. Such an unrecognizable setting and the figure's fantastical dress suggest that she may represent an allegory of music. Musica was among the allegorical figures described by Cesare Ripa in Iconologia, his seminal guide to allegorical imagery of 1644, and may have inspired this and other similar compositions by Bega, including The cittern player now in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (inv. 73-1934). Such figures have also been interpreted as representing the sense of hearing, conventionally depicted in this period as a woman playing an instrument (see E. Buijsen and L.P. Grijp, Music & Painting in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle, 1994, no. 4, pp. 142-145).
Bega frequently painted musical subjects in the early 1660s before his untimely death from plague in 1664. The model in the present work, a favorite of Bega, appears playing a cittern alongside a man in The Duet dated 1663, now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM310), and again in Woman playing a lute (Uffizi, Florence, inv. 1890, no. 1187). Nearly identical to the present painting is a signed and dated canvas of 1662 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. 871). The multiple versions and numerous copies of this composition (see Sotheby's, New York, 28 October 1999, lot 54) testify to its popularity, which persisted well into the 19th century when engraved by Albert Henry Payne in 1850.
Painted in the vertical format which Bega favored, the present work depicts a seated, barefoot young woman playing a cittern, a stringed instrument related to a mandolin. Clearly knowledgeable about music, Bega positioned the fingers of the woman's left hand on the cittern's neck as though playing a chord, with her right hand poised to pluck the strings. Behind, a carved wooden table is piled with books, a jar and a swarm, a woodwind instrument common in Bega's imagery; an overturned lute is also visible nearby. The woman's turban and richly colored drapery are not typical of 17th-century Dutch attire, thus introducing an exotic element. Their shimmering surfaces and almost sculptural folds recall Bega's numerous studies of drapery and figures on paper, which were likely based on observation of live models (see P. Schatborn, Dutch figure drawings from the seventeenth century, exh. cat., The Hague, 1981, pp. 105-107).
While the still-life elements and the figure's costume are rendered in minute detail, the setting is by contrast more generalized, a darkened interior dominated by a reddish curtain gathered to one side at upper right. Such an unrecognizable setting and the figure's fantastical dress suggest that she may represent an allegory of music. Musica was among the allegorical figures described by Cesare Ripa in Iconologia, his seminal guide to allegorical imagery of 1644, and may have inspired this and other similar compositions by Bega, including The cittern player now in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (inv. 73-1934). Such figures have also been interpreted as representing the sense of hearing, conventionally depicted in this period as a woman playing an instrument (see E. Buijsen and L.P. Grijp, Music & Painting in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle, 1994, no. 4, pp. 142-145).
Bega frequently painted musical subjects in the early 1660s before his untimely death from plague in 1664. The model in the present work, a favorite of Bega, appears playing a cittern alongside a man in The Duet dated 1663, now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM310), and again in Woman playing a lute (Uffizi, Florence, inv. 1890, no. 1187). Nearly identical to the present painting is a signed and dated canvas of 1662 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (inv. 871). The multiple versions and numerous copies of this composition (see Sotheby's, New York, 28 October 1999, lot 54) testify to its popularity, which persisted well into the 19th century when engraved by Albert Henry Payne in 1850.