Aelbert CuypDutch, 1620–1691River Landscape with Cows
May one see it?
Unknown
Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam, Netherlands
The owner is known; whether it is on view today is not.
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
Albert Cuyp (1620 - 1691). River landscape with cows, c. 1650. Purchased in 1958, with aid of the N.V. Philips (Eindhoven) to the Jubilee Fund.
Rijksmuseum
Particulars
- Accession number
- SK-A-3957
What it shows
In the catalog
Sources
- Rijksmuseum
- Image: Rijksmuseum — public domain
Meanwhile, in the life of Aelbert Cuyp
The whole lifeearly 1640s
The van Goyen period: tonal landscapes
Probably in 1640 Cuyp first sees a painting by Jan van Goyen and takes from him straw-yellow and light-brown tones and the broken brushstroke, painting mostly small views of his native Holland with figures and animals. Direct training under van Goyen is not documented.
c. 1645
Jan Both's influence: light against the sun
Jan Both, just back in Utrecht from Italy, brings a manner developed in contact with Claude Lorrain: the light moves to a diagonal from the back of the picture, facing the sun contre-jour. Cuyp is one of the first Dutch painters to appreciate it, by some scholars' account through personal contact with Both in Utrecht, and in his short Both-inspired phase makes fuller use than any contemporary of the chromatic range of sunsets and sunrises.
1645–1650
Animals step into the foreground
In some paintings from 1645 to 1650 animals appear in the foreground in a way that does not fit his father's style: Aelbert moves from pure landscape to large forms and foreground figures and makes animals the focus of his pictures, something specific to him. The change is attributed to his interaction with his father.
1651 or 1652
Death of his father and an inheritance
After the death of his father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, Aelbert inherits a considerable fortune and becomes one of the most respected citizens of Dordrecht. He spends most of his life in the house “Huis Samson” on the Wijnstraat.
