A Pier Overlooking Dordrecht

early 1640s

Aelbert Cuyp

Artist, Dutch, 1620 - 1691

We look across a body of calm water onto a wooden pier, rowboats, sailboats, and a town on the distant shore, all beneath a cloudy sky that takes up the top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape. The pier extends into the scene from the left edge, and stretches about a quarter of the way across the painting’s width. Three men and a woman, all with light skin, stand in a group near a fourth man, who sits on a piling at the front corner. They all wear charcoal-gray, muted blue, or fawn-brown clothing and hats. A rifle leans against the hip of one man, and another man looks out at the water, his back turned to the rest of the group. Three small boats are tied to the end of the dock. The one closest to us holds large containers, perhaps wrapped with rope. A fifth man bends over the far edge of the boat farthest from us. In another rowboat to our right, a man stands, another sits, and a third pulls on the oars. Four sailboats float into the distance down the center of the composition. To our right, the town along the far shore has closely spaced buildings with peaked roofs, a windmill, and a tall steeple, all painted with tones of peanut brown and tan. Light falls across the water from our left, casting the area closest to us in deep shadow. The surface of water is painted with tones of ivory and gray, matching the sky above. Light filters and streaks through ash-gray clouds across most of the sky. The clouds part to reveal a patch of pale blue at the upper left corner.

Media Options

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This luminous painting depicts Aelbert Cuyp’s native Dordrecht from the west, as seen from a pier near the village of Zwijndrecht, situated on the opposite bank of the river Maas. The three small, wooden, fishing skiffs tied up at the rough-hewn pier help give the painting its rustic charm. Across the Maas rise Dordrecht’s city walls, with the thin spire of the Groothoofdspoort, a major gateway to the inner harbor, appearing prominently at the left. Sailboats or rowboats provided constant ferry transportation across the river to Dordrecht’s neighboring villages.

Cuyp’s numerous views of river life are extremely varied and demonstrate a remarkable sensitivity to the changing light and water conditions encountered on inland waterways. He could comfortably set boats in the water, even as he visually contrasted water’s translucent and changing surface with the physical presence of heavy wooden hulls and weighty canvas sails. Cuyp’s pictorial sensitivities were also directed toward the activities of humans and animals　in and around the water; they added visual and thematic interest to the inherent beauty of his river scenes.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 49

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Gift of George M. and Linda H. Kaufman

  • Dimensions

    overall: 44.5 × 75.9 cm (17 1/2 × 29 7/8 in.)
    framed: 63.5 × 93.66 × 4.45 cm (25 × 36 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    2012.73.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: A Pier Overlooking Dordrecht, early 1640s

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, by De Vries, Roos, and Brondgeest, Amsterdam, 10-12 May 1853, 2nd day, no. 16); (Lamme).[1] Herman de Kat, Dordrecht; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 2-3 May and 7-8 May 1866, no. 17); Louis Viardot [1800-1883], Paris; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 30 April 1884, no. 2). Alfred Thieme, Leipzig, by 1889.[2] (Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris).[3] private collection, Basel;[4] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 30 November 1973, no. 124); (Brod Gallery, London). (Julie Kraus, Paris), in 1976.[5] private collection;[6] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 April 1985, no. 2); George M. [1932-2001] and Linda H. Kaufman, Norfolk, Virginia; Kaufman Americana Foundation, Norfolk; gift 2012 to NGA.
[1] This might be A.J. Lamme, an auctioneer in Rotterdam, or D.A. Lamme, an art expert in Paris.
[2] Thieme lent the painting to an exhibition in 1889 in Leipzig.
[3] The 1973 sale catalogue lists Sedelmeyer in the provenance, and there is a red wax seal in the bottom right corner on the reverse of the painting impressed with the words "Galerie Sedelmeyer Paris."
[4] The painting is described as "the property of a Basle [sic] collector" in the 1973 sale catalogue.
[5] This information is given in Aelbert Cuyp, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, New York and London, 2001: no. 8, 189.
[6] The painting is described as "the property of a gentleman" in the 1985 sale catalogue.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1889

  • Ältere Meister aus sächsischem Privatbesitz, Leipziger Kunstverein, Leipzig, 1889, no. 44.

2001

  • Aelbert Cuyp, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, no. 8, repro.

2008

  • Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, Mauritshuis, The Hague; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2008-2009, not in catalogue (shown only in Washington).

2018

  • Water, Wind, and Waves: Marine Paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2018, unnumbered brochure.

Bibliography

1907

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century. 8 vols. Translated by Edward G. Hawke. London, 1907-1927: 2(1909):190, no. 635, 198, no. 662.

1975

  • Reiss, Stephen. Aelbert Cuyp. Boston, 1975: 49, 210.

1992

  • Chong, Alan. "Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1992: 284-285, no. 28.

Wikidata ID

Q20177181

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