Cornelis Bega (Haarlem 1631-1664) A mixed company in an interior, signed lower left: c bega (on the bench) oil on canvas, 36 x 28 cm, framed ÜBERLANGTEXT Provenance: Private collection, Germany, until 2020 We are grateful to Guido Janssen for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph. The present canvas is a characteristic work by Bega, a pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, who specialised like his master in evocative and often humorous Dutch interior scenes, known as genre-paintings. He also rendered inventive mockeries of astrologers and alchemists with accomplished still lifes of their various laboratory paraphernalia scattered throughout. The grandson of the celebrated Mannerist painter Cornelis van Haarlem, Bega’s first dated work is from 1652, and by 1654 he was accepted into the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke. His vibrant career was cut short, according to Houbraken, by an outbreak of plague in 1662.