Albert CUYP, 1620–1691
6522 River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants

Christopher Brown, 1991

Extracted from:
Neil MacLaren; revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, The Dutch School 1600–1900 (London: National Gallery Publications Limited, 1991).

Plate A

Signed, lower right: A cuijp

Oil on oak, 123 × 241 cm (49 × 96).

Discussion

This large canvas was probably painted in the late 1650s.¹ Cuyp’s patrons, like those of his father, the portrait painter Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp, appear to have been members of the regent families of Dordrecht, and this large landscape was presumably intended for the house of a member of this group, which Cuyp joined by marriage in 1658.

A print made after the painting in 1764 by William Elliott shows a higher sky and in the inscription beneath gives the dimensions as 60 by 96 inches, which is 11 inches higher than the present size. For this reason it has been thought that the painting was cut down after 1764. However, after the painting was acquired by the National Gallery, the edges of the painting were carefully examined by the Chief Restorer and the unpainted edges discovered on all four sides. The painting cannot, therefore, have been cut down. There are two possible explanations: the painting may have been given a fashionably higher sky at some time before 1760,² or the engraver was exercising artistic licence. Whatever the explanation for the extended sky in the print, the present dimensions of the painting are original and the composition carefully balanced.

In Elliot’s print, the painting is identified as a View on the Maas at Dordrecht View on the Maas at Dordrecht . In fact, it is an imaginary landscape, with mountains on a scale which cannot be found in the Netherlands. Cuyp may, however, have referred to drawings of actual views he made in his sketchbooks, particularly those made on a trip to Nijmegen and Cleves in 1651–2.

The painting was purchased in the United Provinces by Captain William Baillie in about 1760. Baillie acted as an agent for John, 3rd Earl of Bute, in the formation of the collection which he hung at Luton Hoo. It was in Bute’s collection by the time that Elliott’s print was made in 1764. At that time Cuyp was so little known in Britain that Elliott gave the artist’s first name as Adrian. In 1769 John Boydell praised the painting as ‘entirely painted from nature, [it] is inexpressibly bright, clear and sunny: the choice [page 1.556]of scene is elegant and picturesque’.³ According to Benjamin West, it was this picture which began the rage for landscapes by Cuyp among British collectors. On 18 May 1818, Joseph Farington wrote in his diary: ‘I went to the British Institution and there met Mr. West and I went round the exhibition with him examining all the pictures. While looking at Lord Bute’s picture by Cuyp, he said that picture was brought to England by the late Captn. Baillie, and was the first picture by that master known in England. Having been seen pictures by Cuyp were eagerly sought for and many were introduced and sold to advantage’.⁴ The painting hung at Luton Hoo, where it was seen by Gustav Waagen who praised it as ‘a chef d’oeuvre by this Master … Few of Cuyp’s large pictures are so accurately finished in the details, or unite such admirable impasto with such transparency’.⁵

ENGRAVING: By William Elliott, 1764 (discussed above).

PROVENANCE: Purchased in the United Provinces by Captain William Baillie on behalf of John, 3rd Earl of Bute, in whose possession it was when engraved by Elliott in 1764; Marquesses of Bute, Luton Hoo (Manuscript Catalogue of 1790, No. 118) and Mount Stuart, Island of Bute; On loan to the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, 1975‐87; On loan to the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1988–9; Purchased, with the assistance of contributions from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the NACF , 1989.

EXHIBITIONS: BI 1818, No. 85; BI 1819, No. 37; BI 1847, No. 66; RA 1870, No. 102; London, Bethnal Green Museum, ‘Collection of Paintings lent for exhibition by the Marquess of Bute’ 1883 , No. 38; Glasgow 1884; Manchester, Queen’s Park Museum and Art Gallery, ‘The Bute Collection of Pictures’ (Catalogue by J.P. Richter), 1885 , No. 56; London, Guildhall, 1894 , No. 45; Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, ‘Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of the Marquess of Bute’, 1949 , No. 7; London, National Gallery, ‘Aelbert Cuyp in British Collections’ (Catalogue by S. Reiss), 1973 , No. 14; London 1976, No. 31; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, ‘Masters of 17th‐Century Dutch Landscape Painting’ (Catalogue entry by A. Chong) 1988, No. 25.

REFERENCES:

General: Smith, No. 264; HdG , No. 433; S. Reiss, Aelbert Cuyp, London, 1975, p. 183, pi. 140.

In text: