The Negro Page, 1652

Aelbert Cuyp Paintings

The Negro Page, 1652

Oil on canvas, 56 1/8 x 89 1/4 inches (142.8 x 226.7 cm)

Animals & Hunting Scenes Paintings

      After about 1642 Cuyp came under the influence of painters in Utrecht like Jan Both, who had worked for several years in Italy. His tight descriptive early style, nurtured by Jan van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael, now suddenly gave way to a broader, more effulgent style in which the landscape is soaked in a golden light. This style reaches its climax during the 1650s when Cuyp created an imaginary landscape based on personal recollections of the North, but transformed by an appreciation of the South, particularly the Italian campagna, derived from other painters. A distant view, bathed in mist and the warm glow of a late afternoon light, proved irresistible to early collectors. River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants (London, National Gallery), which was painted around 1655, is perhaps the finest example of Cuyp's mature style, but The Negro Page by Cuyp , dating in all probability from a few years earlier, is not far removed in quality. The types of the buildings, the hilly background and the lake are common to both paintings and may be a reflection of Cuyp's journey up the Rhine as far as Nijmegen and Kleve, near the German border, at the beginning of the 1650s.       Cuyp was economical with his motifs and several of those in The Negro Page recur in other paintings. For example, in Huntsman halted (Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts) Cuyp deploys similar horses, dogs and groom in a different composition. Dappled horses and negro pages are frequently found in other works by the artist of comparable date. The spaniel in the foreground of the present work is similarly posed in the painting of Orpheus (Marquess of Bute's collection). Some of the motifs are the subject of preparatory drawings either by Cuyp or his studio, such as the spaniel (Vienna, Albertina), the greyhound and the vegetation on the left (Paris, Lugt Foundation; London, British Museum, amongst others). The figure on the right facing the viewer has been tentatively identified as one of Cornelis van Beveren's sons, perhaps Willem (born 1624) who was appointed Bailiff and Dyke-Reeve of the Lande van Strien in 1648. This identification is based on the fact that his mount's horse brass is in the form of a fleur-de-lys, which suggests a connection with France (a knighthood was conferred on Cornelis van Beveren by the French king, Louis XIII).       Cuyp spent nearly all of his life in Dordrecht. His marriage in 1650 to Cornelia Boschman, the widow of a wealthy Regent, led to a decline in his artistic output as he devoted more time to a career in public life. Cuyp paintings was particularly appreciated by members of the Regent class in Dordrecht, and Cuyp deliberately cultivated the social mores in the paintings dating from the 1650s. These social distinctions are detectable in dress, the emphasis on equitation, the relationship of the figures to architecture and the prominence of servants.