or Berghem, (Nicholas), an excellent painter, was a native of Haerlem, and born in 1624. He received instructions from several very eminent masters; and it was no small addition to their fame that Berchem was their scholar. The charming pictures of cattle and figures by this admirable master are justly held in the highest estimation. He has been singularly happy in having many of them finely engraved by John Visscher, an artist of the first rank. Berchem had an easy expeditious manner of painting, and an inexpressible variety and beauty in the choice of sites for his landscapes; executing them with a surprising degree of neatness and truth. He possessed a clearness and strength of judgment, and a wonderful power and ease in expressing his ideas; and although his subjects were of the lower kind, yet his choice of nature was judicious, and he gave to every subject as much of beauty and elegance as it would admit. The leafing of his trees is exquisitely and freely touched; his skies are clear; and his clouds float lightly, as if supported by air. The distinguishing characters of the pictures of Berchem are, the breadth and just distribution of the lights; the grandeur of his masses of light and shadow; the natural ease and simplicity in the attitudes of his figures, expressing their several characters; the just degradation of his distances; the brilliancy and harmony, as well as the transparency, of his colouring; the correctness and true perspective of his design; and the elegance of his composition; and where any of those marks are wanting, no authority ought to be sufficient to ascribe any picture to him. He painted every part of his subjects to extremely well, as to render it difficult to determine in which he excelled most; his trees, buildings, waters, rocks, hills, cattle, and figures, being all equally admirable.