The Alchemist

1663

Cornelis Bega

Artist, Dutch, 1631/1632 - 1664

A light-skinned man sitting near an oven is surrounded by papers and vessels, all within a shadowy room in this vertical painting. The scene is dominated by chocolate and clay brown, black, slate blue, and shades of gray. The man sits facing our right in profile near the center of the painting. He wears a tall black cap that shadows his eyes and a rust-brown sleeveless garment like a vest over dark, steel-gray, long sleeves. Cream-white fabric tied around his waist could be an apron, and more white fabric drapes over his knees. Brown hair is visible behind his ear, he has a mustache, and his lips are parted as he looks down toward the instruments in front of him. He is hunched over, the elbow closer to us on what might be a flattened bellows, and he holds tongs in his left hand. The vessel in front of him could be made from pewter or glass, and it has a high, curved top and a long spout angled downward. Other pots and a red cloth are jumbled with large, leather-covered folios like thick folders of papers on the floor close to us. More papers, pots, and containers sit on a wide ledge over the open fireplace or oven to our right. A piece of parchment-white cloth hangs down the front of the oven next to a leather knapsack that hangs from the mantle. The top zone of the painting is deep in shadow but there seems to be an arched window or door covered with a wooden shutter to our right, behind the oven. A piece of paper affixed to the wall near the opening shows a vessel like the long-spouted vessel in front of the man. A shallow wooden box near the lower right corner seems to be filled with crumpled paper or cloth. The artist signed and dated the front face of the box with light letters: “C. Bega Ao. 1663.”

Media Options

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Cornelis Bega grew up in a world where crafting fine objects from precious “noble” metals (as gold and silver were often described) was a matter of daily concern. A number of his family members were gold- and silversmiths, including his father, with whom he likely trained before entering the workshop of painter Adriaen van Ostade (1610–1685) in 1648. Like Ostade, Bega embraced low-life genre scenes, favoring taverns and other dark interior spaces as the setting for his subjects.

Here, the alchemist, hunched over his work in a dark, plain interior, focuses on the chemical experiment taking shape in the rounded alembic (glass distillation vessel). His left hand grasps metal tongs that reach into a fire that smolders in a small furnace behind the alembic. Alchemy was intimately bound to proto-chemistry, the study of different elements, and the processes by which one or more elements could be transformed into other matter. The most sought-after “transmutation” was to turn a base metal, such as lead, into gold, so alchemists were often mocked for their foolish pursuit of that impossible quest, even though many made significant contributions to the applied sciences.

With his fine brushwork and mastery of light, Bega had a remarkable ability to convey the basic humanity of his figures and to evoke the luminous presence of inanimate objects in relatively dark interiors. Bega depicts the humble alchemist with dignity, and his surroundings in great detail. Thick tomes with tattered covers lie within arm’s reach, and beautifully rendered earthenware pots, and containers of all shapes and sizes signify the many ingredients that have gone into his concoctions over the years.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 50-C

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Alchemist, 1663

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Cornelis Backer, Amsterdam;[1] (his sale, Zoeterwoude, 16 August, 1775, no. 13);[2] (Abraham Delfos, Leiden); Jonkheer Menno Baron van Coehoorn [d. 1800], The Hague; (his estate sale, Phillipus van der Schley, Amsterdam, 19 October 1801 and days following, no. 6);[3] Louis-Bernard Coders [1741-1817], Amsterdam and Liege; (sale, Maison des Divisions, Paris, 25 January 1802 and days following, no. 16);[4] (Alexandre-Joseph Paillet, Paris); (sale, Maison des Divisions, Paris, 18 April 1803 and days following, no. 28);[5] (Bon-Thomas Henry, Paris). Louis-Chrétien Lorch, Paris; (his sale, Maison des Divisions, Paris, 19 November 1804 and days following, no. 13);[6] (Nodin, Paris); M. Gabory, Rouen; (his estate sale, Hôtel de Bullion, Paris, 15-16 April 1822, no. 5).[7] private collection, England, 1938. Marchese San Pieri Talon, Bologna; (his sale, Franco Semenzato, Venice, 2 June 1985, no. 13);[8] (French & Co., New York); sold October 1985 to Robert H. [1928-2009] and Clarice C. Smith, Bethesda; sold November 1989 to (French & Co., New York);[9] (Bob P. Haboldt & Co., New York), by 1990;[10] purchased 1992 by Mr. and Mrs. Martin Wunsch, New York; gift 2013 to NGA.
[1] The provenance is based on Peter van den Brink et al., Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten, exh. cat., Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Gemäldegalerie, Aachen and Stuttgart, 2012: 283, no. 69, where the association of the NGA painting with the paintings described in the various sale catalogues is deemed to be probable.
[2] The description and size of the painting given in the sale catalogue correspond extremely well to the NGA painting. The measurements, given in Rheinische feet as “hoog 13 ½ breed 11 ½ duim,” are equivalent to 35.3 x 30 cm. The NGA painting is 35 x 28.6 cm.
[3] The painting is listed in the sale catalogue as being on panel, indicating that the canvas support had been mounted on board by this time. The dimensions given are the same as those in the 1775 sale catalogue.
[4] The measurements given in the sale catalogue in French feet equate to 43.3 x 35.2 cm. These are larger than those of the NGA painting, but perhaps they include the frame.
[5] The measurements given in the sale catalogue are 34 x 28 cm.
[6] The measurements given in the sale catalogue are 34 x 20 cm, but the second measurement is probably an error and should have been 28 or 29 cm.
[7] The measurements given in the sale catalogue in French feet are “L. 13 p., H. 9 p.” These equate to 35.1 x 24.3 cm.
[8] In the catalogue for the last of the sales in which the painting appeared, the measurements are given as 35.5 x 29 cm.
[9] The details of ownership by the Smiths are in their collection records; copies are in NGA curatorial files.
[10] In March 1990 the painting was with Haboldt at TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) in Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2012

  • Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen; Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 2012, no. 69, repro.

2016

  • Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, 2016-2017, no. 105, repro.

Bibliography

1984

  • Scott, Mary Ann. "Cornelis Bega (1631/32-1664) as Painter and Draughtsman." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park. Ann Arbor, 1984: 335, no. 147.

1990

  • Sutton, Peter C. "Recent Patterns of Public and Private Collecting of Dutch Art." In Ben P.J. Broos, ed. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The Hague and Zwolle, 1990: 113.

1998

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., ed.; archival contributions by Ruud Priem; assisted by Julia I. Armstrong. Corpus of Paintings Sold in the Netherlands during the Nineteenth Century, Volume 1: 1801-1810. Los Angeles, 1998: 85.

  • Peronnet, Benjamin, and Burton B. Fredericksen, eds. Répertoire des tableaux vendue en France au XIXe siècle, vol. 1: 1801-1810, part I: A-N. Los Angeles, 1998: 128, 129.

2004

  • Franits, Wayne E. Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting. Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution. New Haven and London, 2004: 140, 282 n. 36.

2012

  • Brink, Peter van den, and Bernd Wolfgang Lindemann, eds. Cornelis Bega: Eleganz und raue Sitten. Exh. cat. Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen; Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Stuttgart, 2012: 241-243, no. 69, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right, in gray paint on box: C. Bega Ao.1663

Wikidata ID

Q20177584

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