BEGEYN, Abraham Jansz.

Abraham Jansz. Begeyn (also spelt Begein, Begeijn, Begheyn), Dutch painter and draughtsman. In 1655 he became a member of the Guild of St Luke in Leiden. He was registered in Amsterdam in 1672, but the following year, or a little later, he was recorded in London, where he painted at Ham House, Surrey, together with Willem van de Velde the younger and Dirck van den Bergen. In 1681 he was in The Hague, where he had a student called P. Romburch and where two years later he became a member of the painters’ confraternity Pictura.

From 1688 Begeyn was court painter to Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg (later Frederick I, King of Prussia). The Elector commissioned him to draw views of his country estates and of villages and towns in Germany. Begeyn thus travelled extensively in Germany, visiting Halberstadt, Minden, Bielefeld, Wesel, Cleves and Regenstein.