Dordrecht 1620 – 1691

Aelbert Cuyp, Riverscene, drawing, 185 x 448 mm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv.no. RP-T-1953-2 (on loan from the TU Delft)

Aelbert Cuyp was one of the leading Dutch Golden Age painters. The most famous of a family of painters, pupil of his father Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp.
He married Cornelia Bosman in 1658, a date coinciding so directly with the end of his productivity as a painter, that it has been accepted that this marriage played a role in the end
of his artistic career. The year after his marriage, Cuyp became the deacon of the reformed church. Houbraken realized that Cuyp was a devout Calvinist confirmed by the fact that there were no paintings of other artists in his home.

The artistic training and stylistic evolution of Aelbert Cuyp is difficult because of the lack of documentation and dated works of art. Although no documents describe Aelbert’s role within his fathers workshop, he almost certainly painted landscape backgrounds in a few of his father’s compositions.
He continued to do so even after he had begun to paint independent compositions. Since the records of the Saint Luke’s guild in Dordrecht are missing during the early 1640s, the exact year when Aelbert became an independent master is unknown. It seems unlikely that he received his entire artistic training with his father. In Dordrecht there is little precedent for the views of the Dutch landscape that characterize Cuyp’s early drawings and paintings. Stylistically and thematically these works relate broadly to the tonal landscapes painted in various artistic centers in the Netherlands during the 1630s and early 1640s, most notably by Jan van Goyen (1596-1656). Van Goyen- who was born in Leiden, trained in Haarlem, and lived in The Hague after the mid-1630s – travelled extensively throughout the Netherlands with his sketchbook in hand. One of his favorite subjects was Dordrecht. Cuyp must have certainly known Van Goyens’s paintings. Perhaps he was inspired by this painter to travel trough the Netherlands. Nevertheless it seems improbable that he was Van Goyen’s student.

Cuyp’s stylistic and thematic connections with Rotterdam artists like Herman Saftleven (1609-1685) his brother Cornelis (1607-1681), and Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601-1653) raise the possibility that he studied in Rotterdam for a short time. Drawings of the Mariakerk and Buurkerk in Utrecht from around 1640 confirm that he visited this city early in his career. Utrecht was his mother’s native city and his father studied here with Abraham Bloemaert. It is not likely that Aelbert studied with the same master. His early interest in monochromatic native landscape point towards a connection with Herman Saftleven who lived in Utrecht since 1632. The drawings of Saftlevens brother Cornelis are extremely close in style to drawings Cuyp made. This suggests that the young Aelbert Cuyp was familiar with the Saftleven workshop. If Cuyp was in Utrecht in the 1630s and 1640s he certainly must have seen the scenes with animals by Roelant Savery (1578-1639), who once had been court painter for Rudolf II in Prague. Orpheus Charming the animals by Cuyp reflects the influence of the animal painter Savery. The influence from artists who travelled to Italy for inspiration became essential for Cuyp. He adapted the visual vocabulary of artists like Cornelis van Poelenburgh and Jan Both to create a new vision of the Dutch Countryside. Cuyp was particularly influenced by Both who had returned to Utrecht in 1642. Both’s images of peasants travelling through hilly landscapes softly illuminated by the early morning or late evening light, gave Cuyp the idea to infuse his paintings with comparable effects later in his career.

The riverscene in evening light can be dated in the early 1640s when the monochromatic palette was at its height. But the evening light is already a foreshadowing to the influence of the Italian lights of Jan Both in the later 1640s.

In the nineteenth century this particular work was in the Henderson collection in London where it was seen by Waagen. Through the avid collector/ gentleman-dealer Pfungst who had it for a few years, it went to the Van Alen family. James John van Alen (1848-1923) was an American socialite. He was well known as a New York Society leader and was referred to as the “American Prince of Wales.” His father became wealthy from real estate, which he inherited upon his death in 1886.  In 1876, he married Emily Astor (1854–1881) together they had three children.

Van Alen rented, but did not buy, Rushton Hall in Northamptonshire, England. In 1888 he commissioned the American architect Dudley Newton to build a replica of Wakehurst Place in Newport. When completed the home had cost Van Alen some $750,000 (equivalent to $25,433,000 in 2023). Salve Regina University purchased the mansion from the Van Alen family in 1972. The three children of James John where Mary, James Laurens and Sarah. The two daughters did not have children. James Laurens Van Alen (1878–1927), married Margaret “Daisy” Louise Post (1876–1969) in 1900. Louise was an American socialite, art collector and the niece of Frederick Vanderbilt. From the 1940s until her death, she was the leader of the social scene in Newport, Rhode Island.  Their three children sold the art collection and estate after the death of their mother in 1969.

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