Cornelis Bisschop

Cornelis Bisschop painted quiet domestic scenes in the warm, shadowy manner of Rembrandt’s circle: a girl peeling an apple, a woman cooking, a young couple in conversation. He is also credited with popularising a clever novelty, painted wooden cutouts of figures that stood in a room and fooled visitors into thinking a real person was there.

He was born in Dordrecht in 1630 and studied in Amsterdam around 1650 with Ferdinand Bol, himself a former pupil of Rembrandt. He returned to Dordrecht in 1653 and worked there for the rest of his life, painting portraits, allegories, still lifes and genre scenes, and received commissions from the Danish court. He died in 1674, and several of his eleven children became painters.

Woman Peeling an Apple is typical of his best work: one figure, absorbed in a simple task.