Aelbert Cuyp

Anonymous sale, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 27–28 August 1929, lot 42;
There purchased by Wilhelm Caspar Escher (1859–1929), Zürich;
Thence by descent.

Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Verborgen. Nederlandse en Vlamse schilderijn uit de 16de en 17de eeuw uit de collective W.C. Escher, 2002, no. 12.

R.E.O. Ekkart, in the catalogue of the exhibition,  Verborgen. Nederlandse en Vlamse schilderijn uit de 16de en 17de eeuw uit de collective W.C. Escher, Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 2002, pp. 74–75, 119, no. 12.

The panel is uncradled and flat. There is an old panel join to the right, and an old repaired split running the height of the panel, 18 cm. in from the left-hand edge. The painting has quite recently been cleaned and restored. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals restoration along both the join and the split, particularly in the upper part of the panel. The rest of the painting appears to be very well-preserved with only minor, scattered local retouchings, for example to the left eye, chin and right wrist of the girl, to disguise areas of wear. The varnish is clear and shiny and the picture should not require any further attention. Offered in a modern stained wood frame in good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Until its publication by Rudi Ekkart in the Utrecht exhibition of 2002, this charming portrait had seemingly escaped all critical attention or publication, and its appearance has been a welcome additon to our knowledge of Aelbert Cuyp as a portrait painter.

Cuyp's portraiture has long been the source of much confusion and has attracted its fair share of erroneous attributions. As a young painter he was trained by his father, the portrait painter Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594–1652), with whom he collaborated from an early date, usually by painting the landscapes of his father's portraits. A good example is the Portrait of a family in a landscape of 1641 in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.¹ Those portraits which he painted during his father's lifetime are unsurprisingly dependent upon the latter's patterns. It seems that in those cases when Aelbert was called upon to complete commissions left unfinished after his father's death in 1652, his style was blended with the latter's, to the extent that it has become extremely difficult to disentangle their respective œuvres. However, within a year or two, Aelbert's portraits begin to show a more independent style, such as the two oval panels of a Hunter and his wife(?) of 1651,² and the portraits of Nicolaas Jacobsz. Stoop and his wife Margaretha de Veer of 1653, today in Castle Zypendaal in Arnhem. The eight-year-old girl here is portrayed in a beautiful crimson dress, her hair braided with red ribbon and an amber bead hung around her neck. Her houette and the sprig of flowers, including a daffodil, buttercup and forget-me-nots, are held as tokens of the contemporary fashion for arcadian imagery, and she is composed very much in the style of the earlier Portrait of a huntress of 1651. The sitter's unusual and slightly Asiatic features are strongly reminiscent of some of the sitters in Cuyp's large Family group before the Rhine of very similar or slightly earlier date, today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.³

1. Exhibited Washington, National Gallery of Art, Aelbert Cuyp, 2002, no. 3.
2. Divided now between a Private Collection and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Exhibited Washington, 2002, nos 26 and 27.
3. A. Chong, Aelbert Cuyp and the meaning of landscape, Diss., New York 1992, p. 380, no. 139; reproduced Ekkart 2002, p. 77, fig. 12a.