NARRATOR:
On the banks of a broad river, a milkmaid sits at her work. Atop the lush embankment, her cows gaze out over the still water, where sailboats drift in the early evening haze. Two other boats, their sails still unfurled, have pulled up to a nearby jetty. The setting sun bathes landscape and sky in a radiant light, that streams towards us from the distant horizon.
Aelbert Cuyp was one of the most important landscape painters of 17th-century Holland, renowned for blending typically Dutch subjects with lighting effects borrowed from Italy. Here, he captures the mood of a warm, windless evening. Jis representation of depth is particularly effective, as our eyes are drawn, for example, from the large cow in the foreground to the jetty beyond and on to the windmill on the horizon. His sense of tone and scale, and his use of golden atmospheric light, transforms this rustic scene into one of ideal grandeur.
Evening in the Meadows draws on symbols instantly familiar to contemporary viewers. The large milk cow refers to the fertility of the land—specifically, the productivity of the local economy. Painted soon after Holland’s long war with Spain, the canvas may also carry political implications, celebrating the arrival of a Golden Age of peace and prosperity.
To hear contemporary remarks on the bounty of the Dutch countryside, press 1571.
Evening in the Meadows
mid 1650s
Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch, 1620-1691)
Not on View
"Evening in the Meadows" clearly exhibits Cuyp's ability to simplify the most complex forms and reinterpret them in terms of light. Like Vermeer, he was one of the few painters who deliberately composed a logical arrangement of natural sunlight and combined it with an infallible sense of tone. For a time, Cuyp went further than any other seventeenth-century Dutch painter in his attempt to convey a full chromatic scale of sunset and sunrise.
Details
- Artist Name: Aelbert Cuyp (Dutch, 1620-1691)
- Title: Evening in the Meadows
- Date: mid 1650s
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 41-3/4 x 54-1/2 in. (106 x 138.4 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1970.07.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
[J. van der Linden van Slingelandt (d. 1782); (sale, Dordrecht, 22 August 1785, no. 81; for fl.1007 to);]
Pieter Fouquet Jr.(d. 1800), to;
[Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (sale, Paris, 11 April 1791, no. 49; for Ffr.5150 to);
François-Antoine Robit (sale, Paris, Joseph-Alexandre Lebrun, 6 December 1800, no. 58 (This sale never actually took place.) Robit (sale, Paris, undated and possibly cancelled);
(sale, Paris, Paillet, Delaroche, 11 May 1801, no. 28, for Ffr.10,100 to);
Guillaume-Jean Constantin, who was C.P. at sale and therefore possibly purchased for Ffr.10,100 for;
[Michael Bryan, London (sale, London, 6 November, 1801, no. 56, for Gs. 1,000 to);]
Sir Simon H. Clarke, 9th Bart.,Oakhill Herts., (sale, London, Artaria, 8 May 1840, no. 105; to Artaria for ,955, sh.10, buying for);
Sir Samuel Scott, Bart, until after 1860.
[Kunsthandel Firma D. Katz, Dieren, sold 1934 to;]
Cornelis Johannes Karel van Aalst, Huis-te-Hoevelaken (1866-1939), by inheritance to his son;
Dr. N. J. van Aalst, Huis-te-Hovelaken, 1953, consigned in 1967 to;
[G. Cramer, Oude Kunst, The Hague, 1968, to;]
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Pieter Fouquet Jr.(d. 1800), to;
[Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (sale, Paris, 11 April 1791, no. 49; for Ffr.5150 to);
François-Antoine Robit (sale, Paris, Joseph-Alexandre Lebrun, 6 December 1800, no. 58 (This sale never actually took place.) Robit (sale, Paris, undated and possibly cancelled);
(sale, Paris, Paillet, Delaroche, 11 May 1801, no. 28, for Ffr.10,100 to);
Guillaume-Jean Constantin, who was C.P. at sale and therefore possibly purchased for Ffr.10,100 for;
[Michael Bryan, London (sale, London, 6 November, 1801, no. 56, for Gs. 1,000 to);]
Sir Simon H. Clarke, 9th Bart.,Oakhill Herts., (sale, London, Artaria, 8 May 1840, no. 105; to Artaria for ,955, sh.10, buying for);
Sir Samuel Scott, Bart, until after 1860.
[Kunsthandel Firma D. Katz, Dieren, sold 1934 to;]
Cornelis Johannes Karel van Aalst, Huis-te-Hoevelaken (1866-1939), by inheritance to his son;
Dr. N. J. van Aalst, Huis-te-Hovelaken, 1953, consigned in 1967 to;
[G. Cramer, Oude Kunst, The Hague, 1968, to;]
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
- London, Bryan Gallery and Pall Mall, 1801 to 1802
- von Moltke, J., Catalogue of the D.J.K van Aalst Collection,pl. 23 p. 100
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum,1989, p. 60
- Chong, A., "Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape",no. 112 pp. 353-354; p. 129
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best,2010, cat. 726 p. 332
- The Burlington Magazine,pl. 7 p. 652
- Buchanan, William, Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution,no. 20, no. 56 pp. 43-46, 68
- Veth, G. H., Oud Holland,no. 81 p. 286
- Paarlberg, Sander, et al., In the Light of Cuyp,2020, Fig. 11 p. 18
- Connaissance des Arts, p. 51
- Norton Simon Museum, Selected Paintings at the Norton Simon Museum,1980, p. 60
- Sutton, Peter C., A Guide to Dutch Art in America, p. 218
- Edwards, Jolynn, "Alexandre Joseph Paillet: Study of a Parisian Art Dealer",no. 28 p. 499
- Valentiner, W.R., Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the Collection of C. J. K. van Aalst, p. xiv
- Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, Schilderijen van Oud-Hollandsche meesters uit de collectie Katz,no. 54
- Blanc, Charles, La Trésor de la Curiosité, p. 129, 191
- The Age of Rembrandt,no. 17
- Reiss, Stephen, Aelbert Cuyp, pp. 207, 212
- Oude Kunst- en Antiekbeurs Delft,
- Smith, John, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters,
- Important Paintings by Old Masters,no. 11
- Gelder, J.G. van, Aelbert Cuyp en zijn familie schilder te Dordrecht, Gerret Gerritsz, Cuyp, Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp, Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp, Aelbert Cuyp,no. 6 p. 122
- Important Paintings by Old Masters, no. 13, p. 3
- Hofstede de Groot, C., A Catalogue of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century,no. 367 p. 110
- Arnhem, Gemeentmuseum, 17e eeuwse meeters uit Gelder bezit,no. 16
- Müllenmeister, Kurt, Tierdarstellhungen in Werken neiderländer Künstler [vol. 2 of Meer und Lan im Licht des 17 Jarhunderts],no. 105 p. 54
- Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr., et al., Aelbert Cuyp,fig. I p. 231
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