Lot 24
  • 24

Aelbert Cuyp

Estimate
300,000 - 400,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Aelbert Cuyp
  • Landscape with Sherpherds and Shepherdesses near a well
  • Signed lower left: A.cuyp

  • oil on panel

Provenance

Mrs.Cosmo Bevan;
Her sale, London, Robinson, Fisher & Harding, 10 November 1938, lot 178;
Rita Bellesi, New York, by 1950
Frederick Mont, New York, 1951;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York, by whom sold in 1978 to
S.T. Fee, Oklahoma City;
His (anonymous) sale, New York, Christie's, 9 May 1985, lot 9, unsold (estimate $200,000-300,000); 
By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, 4 June 1987, lot 69, for $180,000;
With Johnny van Haeften, London;
Private collection;
With Robert Noortman, Maastricht, by whom sold to the present owner

Exhibited

Fort Worth, Texas, Kimbell Art Museum, Old Master Paintings: Cranach to Corot, 1982, cat. no. 4;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 7 June-1 Sept. 2002, Aelbert Cuyp, no. 13.

Literature

S. Reiss, Aelbert Cuyp, London 1975, p. 71, no. 38, reproduced;
A. Chong, Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape, dissertation, New York University, 1992, no. 77;
J.G. van Gelder, in J.M. de Groot (ed.),  Aelbert Cuyp en zijn familie. Schilders te Dordrecht, exhibition catalogue, Dordrecht 1977, p. 132, note 1, p. 150, under no. 59, note 1;
C. Wright, in Old Master Paintings: Cranach to Corot, exhibition catalogue, Fort Worth 1982, cat. no. 4, reproduced
A. Wheelock Jr, in A. Wheelock Jr (ed.),  Aelbert Cuyp, exhibition catalogue, Washington 2001, pp. 118, 191-2, no. 13, reproduced in colour;
L. de Vries, review of the above, in Simiolus, 29, 2002, no. 3/4, p. 209.

Condition

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting was on an oak panel, which seems to have had much attention paid to it over the last half century, perhaps having been thinned and backed before being cradled, now with that cradle having been removed. However the paint surface seems entirely secure, although the creamy impasto in the clouds for instance is considerably flattened. The fairly recent restoration has retouched apparent old cracks or damages in the sky particularly: a succession of curving lines of retouching in the lower sky, a fairly wide patch of denser retouching close to the horizon near the trees, and quite widespread retouching in the upper sky particularly on the left side, with some minor retouching around the outer foliage of the lower trees. However most retouching is concentrated in the sky and the lower half of the painting is in distinctly finer condition. Even the usually vulnerable immediate foreground is quite beautifully preserved for instance in a characteristic spray of bramble, and the gentle brushwork of the shepherds is finely intact. The shepherdesses have fared rather less well, with heightening retouching in the seated girl's blue drapery and the head of the distant figure also heavily retouched. The golden glaze of the lower sky against which she stands has also been lost above a certain level. Overall despite the various vicissitudes that seem to have affected the sky especially, the entire lower part of the painting with the trees and the light transfusing the landscape has remained largely quite well preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

Bathed in hazy golden light, this picture epitomizes Cuyp's early lyrical Arcadian landscapes, in which shepherds and shepherdesses, given stature by the low viewpoint and painted as solid statuesque forms gaze over a valley to distant hilltop buildings that seem to be classical ruins; a landscape that owes as much to the Roman Campagna that Cuyp never saw in person as it does to the valley of the Rhine that he saw and drew a year or two before in the early 1640s, and which forms his direct topographical inspiration.  The pastoral idyll was a popular literary mode in The Netherlands by this date, and enjoyed its counterpart in painting; indeed the artist's father Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp had himself painted figures as shepherds and shepherdesses.

Although the present painting probably does not illustrate a specific text, Wheelock quotes part of a love song by Jan Hermansz. Krul that relates a narrative which could almost be its subject: "Not long ago, before the sun sent its golden rays from Heaven's top over the misty earthly valleys, I saw my beloved Galathee driving her flock ... to graze her flock on the grassy land".Though not transcribing this narrative, Cuyp certainly does here paraphrase its spirit in paint, creating an evocative and atmospheric mood which would be the ideal setting for such a romantic encounter.

Alan Chong dates this picture circa 1643-5, a dating followed by Arthur Wheelock in his Cuyp exhibition catalogue entry.2  Earlier, Reiss dated this picture circa 1645 and grouped it with other early Italianate landscapes by the artist such as Herdsmen and Cattle near Rhenen, in Dulwich Picture Gallery.3

There are several related drawings.  A chalk study of a standing shepherd holding a staff in a private collection in Vorden was used for the figure to the right of the present picture, and also in at least two other paintings.4  A study for the sheep on the right, also used in other paintings, is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (5314).  As noted above, Cuyp drew his inspiration for the landscape, and especially for the extensive valley to the left from the countryside he saw during along the Rhine upstream in the early 1640s.  The basic topography of the region – a sandy bosky upland called the Hooge Veluwe which at its southern edge yields to the wide floodplain of the two principal branches of the Rhine with small towns occupying rising ground along its margins - is echoed here.   Wheelock has identified the well on the extreme left as based on a hexagonal stone table situated on a hill overlooking the Rhine near Rhenen, and the distant hill surmounted by buildings is reminiscent of Elten, which is nearby.5

Alan Chong has kindly pointed out that the provenance given in the 1982 exhibition catalogue and in the 1985 and 1987 sale catalogues and due to Chistopher Wright seems to be entirely without evidence and we are grateful to him for suggesting the above substantiated provenance with which the painting will appear in his forthcoming catalogue raisonnĂ©, as no. 83.

1.  See Wheelock, 2001, p. 118.
2.  See Chong, 1977, and Wheelock, 2001.
3.  See Reiss, 1975, p. 71.
4.  See Van Gelder, 1977, p. 150, under no. 59.
5.   Wheelock, 2001, p. 118.