Riverlandscape in evening light

AELBERT CUYP

Dordrecht 1620 – 1691

Provanance

John Henderson, London before 1857-1882
Christie’s London 16-2-1882 lotno 390 to HCH
H.J. Pfungst, London sold in 1903 or 1904 to
J.J.van Alen, ´Rushton Hall´, Kettering London by descent to
The Alen Family,´Wakehurst´, Newport Rhode Island  USA
Christie’s New York 5-12-1969, lotno 59  with repr. to
Newhouse New York, Adv Art Journal 35-1 (1975)
Galerie J. Kraus, Paris where sold to
Collection Ferdinand III Mühlens, Cologne

Literature

Waagen, Galleries and cabinets of art in Great Britain…, vol.4 supplement  London 1857p.209
Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28),  part 2 no. 692,714
Chong, Aelbert Cuyp and the meanings of landscape, PH.D. New York University 1992, no. 54 , p. 302,303.

The picture will be included in the catalogue Raisonné, which is currently edited by Dr. Alan Chong.

Exhibition
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Dutch exhibition, 1904, no 300 (Van Alen-scene on the River Maas)

A few dark, ruffled clouds are still a reminder of the storm that has just passed. Above the far riverbank, the low sky reveals the last streaks of sunlight, the sails of the fishing boats are furled, the water is completely calm, a light haze rises from the river. For a moment, the landscape holds its breath. Then evening falls. Aelbert Cuyp has painted many such atmospheric pictures along the Meuse. The atmospherically softened work presented here was probably painted under the influence of Jan van Goyen, i.e. prior to 1645, before his coloring became stronger and, in his examination of the paintings of Jan Both, more Mediterranean and light-intensive.

Gustav Waagen was very enthusiastic about the painting when he saw it in the Henderson collection in London somewhere between 1854 and 1857:

View of the river Maas On the shore nearest the spectator are three cows and a herdsman, two boys, and a boat with two men. On the stream are vessels and opposite a flat shore. Of warm tone, especially in the sky; and the execution as solid as the feeling for nature is profound.

This very well executed painting by Aelbert Cuyp can be connected to a drawing by the painter in the Rijksprentenkabinet Amsterdam (RP-T-1953-2)

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