Artist info: Cornelis Bega lived and worked in Haarlem and was the son of sculptor and goldsmith Pieter Jansz. Begijn. His mother Maria was the 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.
From 1653 to 1654 he went on a Grand Tour with his fellow artists Dirk Helmbreker, Vincent van der Vinne and Guillam Dubois through Germany, Switzerland and France. Bega´s dated works begin in 1652, and in 1654 he was accepted into the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, dying only ten years later, possibly of the plague.