Aelbert Cuyp Dordrecht 1620 - 1691

In the collection of the present owner's family since before 1880.

Pictures of this sort  - a peasant couple: he a river fisherman; she a kitchenmaid - are most unfamilar in the oeuvre of Aelbert Cuyp, and they are of a type more usually associated with his father Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594-1652).  We are most grateful to Alan Chong, who has inspected this pair at first hand and has confirmed their authorship.  Dr. Chong suggests that they may have been painted in circa 1652, when Jacob became ill, in order to satisfy demand or to fulfil orders given to the family atelier.  Whatever the precise circumstances of their creation, the form of their signatures, as Dr. Chong confirms, dates them to the early 1650s.  Descriptions of similar pictures of single tradesmen and maids in Hofstede de Groot's catalogue raisonné, whether copies or not, point to the existence of similar pictures.