A Woman Seated Near a Basket on a Stool

This sheet is one of numerous figure studies by the Haarlem artist Cornelis Bega, a significant group of which are executed in black and white chalk on colored paper (see also 1975.131.138). Most of these are believed to date to the end of the artist’s career, and some have been linked to figures in specific paintings by his hand.[1] Bega’s practice of figural drawing may have been informed by that of his maternal grandfather, the prominent Mannerist painter Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, who was a member, along with Hendrick Goltzius and Karel van Mander, of the Haarlem Academy and whose drawings (approximately 200 in number) Bega inherited.[2] Bega himself seems to have participated in group drawing sessions with Gerrit Berckheyde and Leendert van der Cooghen.[3]

This drawing, which came to light in 2014, shows a woman seated on the floor or on a low stool with her hands in her lap and her head turned to the left; her open mouth suggests that she is speaking to someone or reacting to something not pictured. She cannot be directly associated with any particular picture by Bega, but many of his works feature similar figures seated with their heads in profile, sometimes speaking to another figure, as in the tavern scene of ca. 1660-62 in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (inv. 1233). The broad face, heavy-lidded eyes, and short, upturned nose identify the model as the same woman who appears in a signed drawing in Frankfurt (Städel inv. 5706) and in a drawing sold at Koller Auctions on September 22, 2017 (lot 3440). In the present sheet, Bega’s interest lies less in the particularities of the woman’s facial features and anatomy and more in her pose and placement within the interior space and in the fall of drapery over her bent arms and legs. Touches of white chalk enhance the illusion of volume and light, and careful hatching in black describes the creases and folds of the cloth. More vigorous strokes set off her head and body from the wall behind her.

(JSS, 8/23/2018)


[1] See Mary Ann Scott, “Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) as Painter and Draughtsman,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1984, esp. pp. 371-82; Baukje Coenen in Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten (Aachen and Berlin, 2012), pp. 40-59 ff.; and Susan Anderson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums, 2016), pp. 34-36 and 331, note 1. Additional single female figure studies have since appeared in sales at Christie’s London, July 5, 2017 (lot 52) and Koller Auctions, Zurich, September 22, 2017 (lot 3440).

[2] Mary Ann Scott, “Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) as Painter and Draughtsman,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1984, p. 6. See further discussion by Susan Anderson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums, 2016), p. 34.

[3] Peter Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exh cat. (Amsterdam and Washington, 1981), pp. 99-112; Baukje Coenen in Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten, exh cat. (Aachen and Berlin, 2012), p. 41; and Susan Anderson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums, 2016), p. 34.