Aelbert Cuyp, Dutch, 1620-1691
Title: A Road on the Dunes
Date: 1640s
Medium: Graphite, black chalk and watercolour on paper
Dimensions:
18.8 x 30.5 cm
Credit Line: Purchased, 1891
Object Number: NGI.2070
DescriptionAlmost two thirds of Aelbert Cuyp’s drawings are landscapes, this being his main interest, often simple rural scenes seen from a close viewpoint. This image is similar stylistically to a series of drawings by the artist of the landscape around Utrecht, which Cuyp visited in the late 1630s. The weather-beaten trees with dead branches and exposed roots are treated in an unsentimental manner. The road passing through the windswept, uninhabited scene leads the eye towards a view of distant dunes, with the low horizon and expansive sky characteristic of Dutch landscape. Cuyp seems to have produced these drawings for their own sake. They were not preparatory studies for paintings, yet despite their finished quality, they were not meant for the market, as Cuyp parted with few of them during his lifetime. Self-contained and beautifully detailed, these works were highly prized by later collectors in England. The collectors’ marks stamped on the front of this sheet indicate that it was owned at different times by Lord Spencer and William Esdaile – both notable collectors of old master drawings in the nineteenth century.
March 2016
March 2016
ProvenanceN. F. Haym; Th. Dinsdale; Lord Spencer; William Esdaile; Miss James; purchased, Christie's, London, 22 June 1891, Miss James Sale, lot 188
Exhibition HistoryDrawings from the National Gallery of Ireland, Wildenstein, London/New York, 1967
Master European Drawings From the Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre, Colorado; Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; The Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minnesota; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1983
Master European Drawings From the Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre, Colorado; Art Gallery, University of Maryland, College Park; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; The Minneapolis Museum of Art, Minnesota; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1983