Aelbert Cuyp: 11 works

'Aelbert Cuyp was the painter of the Dutch landscape of simple beauty, giving his paintings a special atmosphere with his mastery use of light and atmospheric effects. This work was probably painted around 1650, before he travelled to the Rhineland.'

'The two goats in the left foreground were copied from drawings executed by Cuyp's father, used for engravings in the book Diversa Animalia Quadrupedia of 1641. The painting probably dates from around the same time, when Cuyp was still very much under the influence of his master Jan van Goyen.'

'A collaborative work of father and son, Jacob Gerritsz. and Aelbert Cuyp of Dordrecht, this painting is both a landscape and a family portrait that captures the moment of the return from the hunt.'

'With a rich mixture of chalk and wash and making liberal use of the white paper, he emphasized the play of sunlight and shadow over the female form.'

'Cuyp included precise details that convey the particularities of the specific place portrayed: the boat's rigging and flag and the towns' windmills, houses, and churches.'

'This 'Passage Boat' by Cuyp (1620-91) appears too ordinary to be a 'ship of state', yet the image carries the same visionary enthusiasm.'

'Shortly after 1650 Albert Cuyp journeyed along the Rhine between Nijmegen and Cleves, and this painting is based on sketches he did there.'

'"The strong composition and the delicate handling of the landscape and figures are typical of Cuyp's mature style of the 1650s. Cuyp populated his landscapes with different kinds of people, as here: gentry on horseback and farmers and shepherds on foot, both enjoying the beautiful evening in a hilly landscape.'

'It is probably one of his last: in 1658, Cuyp married Cornelia Boschman, a wealthy widow with extensive property around Dordrecht, and he seems to have retired from painting soon afterwards. Cuyp's remarkable popularity in Britain began in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.'

'An eighteenth-century pastiche, according to Chong (letter on file, 1984), possibly by Jacob van Strij, of Cuyp's original formerly on loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum.'