Resting horsemen in landscape

Cuyp likely portrayed here two members of a well known family of Dordrecht in a landscape near Cleves. The painter got frequenter such portrait assignments.

Already in his own time Cuyp had much success. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century these equestrian scenes became frantic popular in the English peerage.

Landscape with flute playing herdsmen

This picture indicates a clear step in the development of the painter. The color and exposure are not any more monochrome, but distinct southern of character.

While placing large person - and animal figures in close-up as equipoise in the scenery, Cuyp went ahead on his later equestrian portraits.

Woman in a stable interior

The woman on this painting looks towards the onlooker, while she polishes a cupper kettle. The invading light thourgh the open door, reflects a still life of vegetable, dead birds, copper and earthenware.

Cows played a large role in the works of Cuyp. In the seventeenth century the cattle ranches grew more and more around Dordrecht because more land was dried from areas drowned by the St. Elisabeth flood of 1421.

Wealthy families from Dordrecht financed the retaking of land, the wife of Aelbert Cuyp owned owned large much graze - and arable land in de Grote Waard around Dordrecht.

Dutch river view

Cuyp painted this river view at the beginning of the 1640s. The use of colors is austerely.

In color use Cuyp shows kinship with the Leyden scenery painter Jan van Goyen, who worked some time in Dordrecht.

Hilly river landscape

In the years 1640 the young Aelbert Cuyp worked in the monochrome style of Jan of Goyen.

Subsequently he began to experiment with sunlight over his sceneries.

The Ruins of the Abbey of Rijnsburg

View on the ruins of the Abbey of Rijnsburg

Portrait of the duck Sijctghen

Life-size and lifelike Cuyp has shown the duck. Pets in the Painting of the Golden Age is not rare, but as genuine portrait of a duck this painting is unique. In the poem on the panel the duck speaks to herself about her 100 eggs per year and her high age of 20 years. In the last two line of the poem she asks the reader, after her death,  to addd her death year and her ultimate age. Indeed, anno 1650 Cuyp added a few lines, stating that Sijctghen was aged 23 years.

Landscape with cows and young herdsman

Landscape with a shepherd boy with two cows.

A senior merchant of the Dutch East India Company, Jacob Mathieusen and his wife

The merchant and his wife are dressed in the sober Dutch style. Behind them a slave is holding a parasol, known as a 'pajong'. In Asia this was a symbol of status and power.

The Dutch adopted this Asian custom with the same ease as they adopted the ownership of slaves. With his cane, the merchant is pointing to the VOC fleet of ships ready to sail home for Europe. In the background lies the partially walled city of Batavia, the hub of the VOC’s operation in Asia.

Dordrecht Viewed from the East

Dordrecht Viewed from the North, with the Grote Kerk and the Groothoofdspoort

View of Arnhem

This view of Arnhem shows the city from the north-west. The most prominent building among all the towers and spires is the Great Church of St Eusebius just to the left of centre.

Large River Landscape with Riders

The location of this 'River Landscape with Riders' has been identified as the hills between Nijmegen and Cleves.

In 1652, Cuyp travelled along the Rhine and into Germany.

Aelbert Cuyp never visited Italy himself, yet many of his landscapes are bathed in the typical golden light of the Mediterranean. Here too, the artist has depicted warm sunlight reflected on the surface of the river. The location of this 'River Landscape with Riders' has been identified as the hills between Nijmegen and Cleves. In 1652, Cuyp travelled along the Rhine and into Germany. The sketches he made on his journey formed the basis for this painting.

Landscape with herdsman and cattle

Landscape with herdsmen and cattle on a road along the water. In the distance a round tower.

Portrait of a young man

Bust with a feathered beret on the head, in the left hand he holds the barrel of a gun.

River landscape with cows

Flat river landscape on the banks of the water some cows, the most left-wing animal is drinking.

Mountainous landscape with the ruins of a castle

Mountainous landscape. Left to the foreground two riders, further backwards a herdsman and shepherds with their flocks on a road along the ruins of a castle.

Portrait of Margaretha de Geer (1585-1672)

Portrait of Margaretha de Geer, wife of Jacob Trip, with a large collar and a black cap on her head.

Dordrecht Viewed from the North, with the Grote Kerk

Landscape in waning light

Self portrait as a boy (uncertain)

Portrait of Pietsser de Roovere (1602-1652)

 Ruiterportret van Pietsser de Roovere (1602-1652), waarschijnlijk in zijn functie als opzichter van de zalmvisserij te Dordrecht

River-bank with Cows

Grey Horse in a Landscape

A River Scene with Distant Windmills

This work, showing a calm river scene with small boats and windmills on the low horizon, was painted shortly before he changed his style under the influence of Jan Both, who returned from Italy in 1641.

Portrait of a Bearded Man

This may be a portrait of Jacob Cuyp, the painter's father, with whom Aelbert trained and who was 56 in 1649. There is, however, no documented portrait of Jacob Cuyp.

Aelbert Cuyp is best known for his Italianate landscapes bathed in warm sunlight. The National Gallery owns several of them, for example 'River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants'.

The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm

On the right is Dordrecht, dominated by the profile of the Grote Kerk.

The horizon is very low which gives greater prominence to the ship in the foreground as well as to the dramatic sky. Storm scenes are very unusual in Cuyp's work.

River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants

This painting is one of the greatest 17th-century Dutch landscapes. It is the largest surviving landscape by Cuyp, and arguably the most beautiful. The entire scene is bathed in a gentle sunlight, harmonizing all the elements, natural, animal and human.

According to the painter Benjamin West, it was this picture, acquired by the Earl of Bute in the early 1760s, that began the rage for Cuyp among British collectors in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Peasants and Cattle by the River Merwede

On the left, in the distance, is the ruined castle of Merwede (Huis te Merwede), which is a mile to the east of Dordrecht. It was built in the 13th century and destroyed about 1420. Its ruins still stand. (see the history of Dordrecht on this website)

Cuyp painted and drew the ruined castle on several occasions and the prominently displayed cows occur in a number of his other paintings.

For example, the cow on the left appears in 'The Large Dort', also in the National Gallery's Collection.

A Herdsman with Five Cows by a River

This painting is a mature work and shows how a traditional type of composition was transformed by the artist.

The scene is illuminated from the left by the warmth of the sun which sparkles on the water, highlighting the reflections of the boats and the cattle.

A Distant View of Dordrecht, with a Milkmaid and Four Cows, and Other Figures ('The Large Dort')

The painting shows in the background the town of Dordrecht (Dort) from the south-east. The skyline is dominated by the Grote Kerk with the Vuilpoort, one of the town's water gates (demolished in 1864), beyond the windmill to the left.

A similar view appears in another National Gallery painting by Cuyp, known as 'The Small Dort'. The church and the water gate are seen from another angle in 'The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm' by Cuyp, also in the National Gallery's Collection.

Ubbergen Castle

Ubbergen is near Nijmegen in the Province of Gelderland. The castle, which had long been a ruin, was pulled down in 1712. Because of its partial destruction during the Spanish occupation in 1582, the 14th-century castle was seen by the Dutch as a national symbol.

A Distant View of Dordrecht, with a Sleeping Herdsman and Five Cows ('The Small Dort')

Dordrecht (Dort) is seen in the background from the south-east, with the Grote Kerk in the centre, and the Vuilpoort, one of the town's water-gates (demolished in 1864) on the left.

This painting exactly repeats the view of Dordrecht seen in the so-called 'The Large Dort', also in the National Gallery's Collection.

A Hilly River Landscape with a Horseman talking to a Shepherdess

This scene is inspired by the landscape along the lower Rhine. Cuyp used the warm Italian sunlight he had adopted from his colleagues who specialized in Italianate landscapes.

It is an important work of Cuyp's maturity, weaknesses in the drawing of, for example, the shepherdess, are entirely consistent with Cuyp's style at that period.

A Horseman with a Cowherd and Two Boys in a Meadow, and Seven Cows

The figures and animals in the foreground are silhouetted against a bright sunny sky. The panoramic vista that stretches before them is inspired by the landscape between Nijmegen and Cleves in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

There is a drawing for the sleeping boy on a signed sheet of studies (now Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet).

A Herdsman with Seven Cows by a River

This may be a copy after an unknown landscape by Cuyp, or a pastiche imitating his style. Such pastiches were painted by the 18th-century painter Jacob van Strij (1756 - 1815), who may be the artist of this picture.

A Shepherd with his Flock

Passage Boat on the Maas

The Ferry Boat

Shipping on the Maas, Dordrecht

The Avenue at Meerdervoort

Horsemen in a Landscape

Evening Landscape with Horsemen and Shepherds

The Negro Page

The Mariakerk in Utrecht from the Northeast

Ruins of the Huis te Merwede

Herdsmen with Cows

A Road near a River

On of the last paintings made by the master.

In 1658 Cuyp married a rich widow, and in the 1660s he seems to have virtually abandoned painting.

View of a Plain

View on Dordrecht

Dordrecht Viewed from the Northeast

Wooded Landscape with an Artist

Dordrecht from the North

Dordrecht from the North

Landscape with Ubbergen Castle