Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beck, David
BECK, DAVID (d. 1656), portrait painter, was born at Delft. His name is variously written B'eec and Beek. The statement of Houbraken and the writers who follow him, that he was born 25 May 1621, is contradicted by the existence of an authenticated picture at St. Petersburg, which is dated 1631, and made at least doubtful by the fact, which Houbraken himself adduces, that he taught drawing to the children of Charles I. In this country he was Vandyck's pupil, and had so much facility in painting that Charles I is stated to have said, 'Faith, Beck! I believe you could paint riding post.' He left England, and worked as a portrait-painter in the courts of France and of Denmark. Still later he entered the service of the Queen of Sweden, and was sent by her to various courts of Europe with a commission to paint portraits of the most illustrious persons of Christendom. This information we find in Cornelius de Bie's 'Het gulden Cabinet,' where is also a panegyrical poem and a fine, as well as very handsome, portrait of the painter. He accompanied the queen to Rome, and was elected a member of the painters' guild of that city in 1653. Returning, he accompanied his patroness as far as Paris, and then left her upon a plea that he wished to revisit his old friends in Holland. He died suddenly at the Hague on 20 Dec. 1656. Houbraken describes him as 'a handsome distinguished man, but without genius.' He also asserts that he was poisoned by order of the Queen of Sweden, who feared he did not intend to keep his promise of returning to her; but Houbraken's tales are in general debateable.
Beck's pictures, the number of which should be very great if the tales of his celerity have any truth, are now rare. There is one in the National Gallery of Stockholm, a three-quarter portrait of his patroness, the Queen of Sweden, which shows him to have been a sober follower of Vandyck; and there is another in a private collection in the same city. His best work is seen in small portraits, as in that already mentioned picture at St. Petersburg, in the possession of Peter von Semmnow, dated 1631 . Even here the influence of Vandyck is marked. Beck has little claim to rank among English artists, and the printed accounts of him in English are incomplete and incorrect. The best account is by W. Bode in the latest edition of Nagler.
[Houbraken's De groote Schonburgh, ii. 83; De Bie's Het gulden Cabinet; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painters, i. 338; Pilkington's Dict. of Painters (recounts an extraordinary miracle which befell the painter); Nagler's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, ed. 1881.]