JACOB GERRITSZ. CUYP | Portrait of Jacob Trip (circa 1576–1661), aged 74, half-length, wearing a skullcap and a flat collar

Richard Bayley (according to a label on the reverse, inscribed 'no. 49');
With Durand-Ruel, Paris, before 1890, by whom sold, 26 June 1890, to
Charles L. Hutchinson (1854–1924), Chicago, by 1909;
By whom bequeathed on his death to the Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 25.707;
By whom sold, New York, Parke-Bernet, 2 March 1944, lot 68, for $2,500 to William Kent;
Private collector, Tennessee;
By whom sold, New York, Parke-Bernet, 15 May 1946, lot 41, for $1051 to Continental Gallery;
Colonel Capton Michael Paul (1901–80), Palm Beach;
By whose Estate sold, New York, Sotheby's, 17 January 1985, lot 62;
Where acquired by Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann. 

Seattle, Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition, 1 June – 15 October 1909, no. A12 (as self-portrait of J.G. Cuyp).

J.C. Heyligers, Jacob Gerrits Cuyp, Porträt-, Genre- und Historienmaler zu Dordrecht, 1594-1652, doctoral diss., Rostock 1924, cat. no. 93;
The Art Institute of Chicago, A guide to the paintings in the permanent collection, Chicago 1932, p. 148, inv. no. 25.707;
A. Chong, Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape, doctoral diss., New York University, New York 1992, pp. 540–41, cat. no. JC 58;
S. Giepmans, in Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp (1594–1652), S. Paarlberg (ed.), exh. cat., Dordrecht 2002, p. 154, cat. no. 36, and p. 184, cat. no. 101, reproduced in colour p. 155.

The panel is cradled, flat and stable, and is made up of three vertical planks. The paint surface is slightly dirty and has thinned slightly around the sitter's beard and in some areas of his face, and the varnish is slightly discoloured. Small discoloured retouchings are visible along the joins and scattered in the sitter's forehead, around his nose, and in his collar. Inspection under ultraviolet light confirms these, along with retouching to a small scratch in the background centre left 1.5 cm. long, and some strengthening to his beard where the wood grain has become more visible. There is otherwise very little intervention and the painting is in overall good condition. Offered in a carved and gilt wood frame in good condition.
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This portrait is the earlier of two that Jacob Cuyp produced of the wealthy Dordrecht merchant Jacob Trip, along with pendant portraits of his wife, Margaretha de Geer (1583–1672).¹ Trip made his fortune through mining, manufacturing iron and trading in armaments, and Margaretha was likewise from a wealthy family. Jacob's other likeness of Trip is dated 1651,² and both must have provided the basis for his son Aelbert Cuyp's portrait of the sitter, dated 1652 (perhaps completing a commission originally given to his father).³ Pendant portraits of the couple were also painted by Nicolaes Maes, and in circa 1661 Rembrandt executed the grand, three-quarter-length portraits of the pair in their old age, today in the National Gallery, London.⁴ The present painting has the distinction of once having been the property of Charles L. Hutchinson, Founder and President of The Art Institute of Chicago; Colonel Capton Michael Paul, a Russian migrant to America who made his fortune in petroleum, and in whose house at Palm Beach this painting hung when President John F. Kennedy and his family spent the Christmases of 1961 and 1962 there; and latterly, Professor Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, whose remarkable legacy in the field of Dutch and Flemish painting is perpetuated today through the generations of leading academics and curators that he taught.

1 Signed and dated 1649, Aix-en-Provence, Musée Granet; and signed and dated 1651, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. A611; see, respectively, Paarlberg 2002, p. 156, under cat. no. 37, reproduced fig. 37b; and p. 158, cat. no. 38 and p. 184, cat. no. 104, reproduced in colour p. 159.
2 Oil on panel, 73.5 x 59.5 cm.; Walter P. Leser, Denver – on loan to Denver Art Museum; see Paarlberg 2002, p. 156, under cat. no. 37 and p. 184, cat. no. 103, reproduced p. 156, fig. 37a.
3 Oil on panel, 65.5 x 57.5 cm.; private collection; see Paarlberg 2002, p. 156, cat. no. 37, reproduced in colour p. 157.
4 Inv. nos NG1674 and NG1675; see Paarlberg 2002, p. 154, under cat. no. 36, reproduced fig. 36b, and p. 158, under cat. no. 38, reproduced fig. 38b.