Cornelius van Haarlem, “The Fight Between Ulysses and Irus”, 1590, Engraving, 42.8 x 33.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Insert: Cornelius von Haarlem, Cain Killing Abel, 1591, Engraving, 33.3 x 41.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Dutch Mannerist painter Cornelius Comelisz, known as Cornelius van Haarlem, was born the son of wealthy parents in 1562 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. He first studied with Renaissance painter Pieter Pietersz the Elder in Haarlem. Later between 1580 and 1581, van Haarlem travelled to Rouen, France, and then to Antwerp, where he became a pupil of Flemish Renaissance painter Gillis Coignet for a year.
Cornelius van Haarlem painted mainly portraits as well as mythological and Biblical subjects. Initially he painted large-size, highly stylized works with Italianate nudes in twisted poses with a grotesque, unnatural anatomy. Later, van Haarlem’s style changed to one based on the realist tradition of the Netherlands.
In 1581, van Haarlem settled in Haarlem, becoming a respected member of the community, and received his first official commission in 1583. The resulting militia company portrait of the Haarlem Civic Guard, a milestone in Dutch group depictions with its liveliness, earned him the position of official city painter and many future commissions.
Along with Karel van Mander, printmaker Hendrick Golzius and other Northern Mannerist artists, Cornelius 
van Haarlem established the Haarlem Academy which provided artists the opportunity to draw from models and plaster casts. Before this time, no Dutch artists studied the nude human figure, which was the principal motif of van Haarlem’s drawings and paintings.
Between 1590 and 1593, van Haarlem worked on a large commission for four large paintings to decorate the Prinsenhof, part of the municipal complex in Haarlem. Following its completion, he received numerous major commissions from: the Civic Guard in 1599, the Commanders of the Order of Saint John in 1617 and 1624, the Court of the Stadholder in the Hague in 1622, and the hospital of the Helige Geesthuis in 1633.
Cornelius van Haarlem served from 1613 to 1619 as a regent of the Old Men’s Home in Haarlem. From 1626 to 1629, he was a member of the Catholic Saint Jacob’s Guild and, in 1630, along with other artists, was involved in the formulation of new regulations for the Saint Luke’s Guild in Haarlem, a guild for painters and both gold- and silversmiths. Cornelius van Haarlem died on the 11th of November in 1638.
Works by Cornelius van Haarlem are on display at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and other museums.