Cornelius, painter of landscape, cattle, and conversations, was born at Haerlem in 1620, and was the disciple of Adrian Oltate. Falling into a dissipated way of life, he was disdained by his father; for which reason he cast off his father's name, which was Begeyn, and assumed that of Bega: his early pictures being marked with the former, and his latter works with the other. He had a fine pencil, and a delicate manner of handling his colours, so as to give them a look of neatness and transparency; and his performances are so much esteemed in the Low Countries, as to be placed among the works of the best artists. He caught the plague from a woman with whom he was deeply enamoured; and he showed so much sincerity of affection, that notwithstanding the expostulations of all his friends and physicians, he would attend her to the last moments of her life, and died a few days after, aged 44.