An amateur artist of independent means, he left a small oeuvre of which his drawings represent the major portion.

[2] Leendert van der Cooghen was born in Haarlem on 9 May 1632 as the son of the Flemish flax merchant Jacob Adriaensz.

[5] He does not seem to have joined Bega when the latter and other young Haarlem artists Dirk Helmbreker, Vincent van der Vinne and Guillam Dubois travelled to Germany and Switzerland in 1650-1651.

Van der Vinne included a portrait drawing which Leendert made of him in his Vanitas Still Life with a Self-Portrait (1660, Frans Hals Museum).

Accompanied by the motto 'Memento Mori' (Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die'[6]), this drawing recurs in another Vanitas still life with a portrait of the painter by van der Vinne dated 1664 (Tajan Paris auction of 9 December 1996, lot 20).

[1] The early Dutch biographer Arnold Houbraken stated that van der Cooghen was a painter of landscapes, portraits, and genre pieces.

[1] Three paintings are with certainty attributed to van der Cooghen, the Doubting Thomas (signed and dated 1654, Mauritshuis), the Adoration of the shepherds, (signed and dated 1656, Frans Hals Museum ) and the Constance (Preciosa) abducted by gypsies (1650s, formerly in the Bailey Art Museum in Charlotteville, Virginia).

[1] The latter work was inspired by the story popularised in Cervantes' novella La gitanilla ("The Little Gypsy Girl') first published in 1613.

The story was transposed by the Dutch poet Jacob Cats in verse in his Het Spaense Heydinnetje ('The Spanish heathen girl') published in 1637.

The painting is based on the story in the New Testament which recounts of the apostle Thomas who expresses doubts that the person he sees in front of him is truly Jesus who has arisen after his crucifixion and death.

[11] His drawings share similarities with other Haarlem artists of his time such as Bega, Dirk Helmbreker and van der Vinne.

His red and black drawings (all dating to the first half of the 1650s) are close to the Flemish style of his master Jordaens and Jan Cossiers.