Cornelis de Man

He wanted to travel beyond the port of Dordrecht and that is what he did, spending a year in Paris as soon as he came of age and had enough talent to pay his way with his painting skills.

According to the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) he became a member of the Delft Guild of St. Luke in 1642 and ultimately travelled to Italy.

He settled for two years in Florence, where he had a rich patron, but finally stayed the longest in Rome.

[2] He was back in 1653 and stayed in Delft, where he created genre works that are reckoned to be "of the "Pieter de Hooch" school.

This unusual painting was a studio reconstruction of the factory in Spitsbergen, based on a Danish original.