Baruch Laguna - Little seamstress

Baruch Lopes de Leão Laguna was the son of Salomon Lopes de Leão Laguna and Sara Kroese. After becoming an orphan at the age of ten, he ended up in the Portuguese-Israelite Orphanage in Amsterdam. At the age of fourteen, he went to the Quellinius School, where he was trained as a decorative painter. In 1880, he was admitted to the National Academy of Fine Arts, where he was taught by August Allebé and Barend Wijnveld.

At the age of seventeen, Baruch Lopes de Leão Laguna had to leave the orphanage. Until he was twenty, he lived and worked in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, including in the studio of Meijer de Haan. He acquired some fame by providing illustrations for Elseviers Maandschrift.
In 1884 Baruch Lopes de Leão Laguna left the Rijksacademie. A year later, in 1885, he became a member of the artists' association Arti et Amicitiae, where he also exhibited for the first time that year. He was also a member of the artists' association Sint Lucas in Amsterdam.
Baruch Lopes de Leão Laguna painted many lifelike portraits of important people, such as politician Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, chief rabbi Abraham van Loen, actor Louis de Vries and businessman Sylvain Kahn. He also specialized in painting flowers and interiors. He painted landscapes only occasionally at the request of the Laren art dealers, because they were good for export to the United States.