Landscape with Herdsmen

mid-1650s

Aelbert Cuyp

Artist, Dutch, 1620 - 1691

Warm sunlight bathes a scene with a herd of five golden tan, ivory, or chocolate-brown cows lying or standing on a low hill near four people on foot and on horseback in this horizontal landscape painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The horizon line is about a quarter of the way up the composition and is lined in the deep distance with spires rising over trees. Close to us and at the center of the composition, two cows look off to our left in profile; one is caramel brown and lies on the ground in front of a standing, gray cow. The three remaining cows cluster to our right and look off that side of the painting. One of two standing cows is ivory and the other is brown with a white face. The fifth cow lies down and is the same pale brown color of the other reclining cow. Two men riding horses converse with two people on foot to our right of and slightly behind the cows. The person closest to us rides a black horse and faces away from us. He wears a plumed hat and a red cape draped over a blue-gray coat, and he carries a long, thin rod. He looks toward the two people on foot farther back behind the cows. One standing person wears a gray coat, a floppy black, plumed hat, and holds a long staff in one hand and points to our right with the other. The other standing person wears a straw hat over blond hair and wears a blue garment over a white shirt. Near the right edge of the painting, the other horseman wears a gray coat and a brown cap over brown hair. He rides a silvery gray horse and looks back over his shoulder toward the interaction or herd. Birds fly in the distance in the watery blue sky below a bank of dove-gray clouds.

Media Options

Skip thumbnail navigation
Back to thumbnail navigation
This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

This bucolic landscape depicts two horsemen who have stopped on a small rise overlooking a broad river valley to ask local herdsmen for directions. With figures and cattle silhouetted against an expansive sky and late afternoon light bathing the scene in a golden glow, the painting conveys the sense of peace and tranquility that pervaded the Netherlands after the signing of the Treaty of Münster in 1648 that ended the war against Spain and finally established the Dutch Republic.

This highly evocative landscape is based on a real place: the valley of the Rhine River near the towns of Cleves and Calcar, not far from the Dutch border. Cuyp had visited this broad river valley in the early 1640s and recorded his impressions of its towns, churches, and windmills in a series of panoramic drawings that were once part of a sketchbook. When Cuyp painted this work, he referred to one of his drawings of the town of Calcar, which housed the ruins of the castle of the dukes of Cleves, seen here in the far distance behind the haze. Nevertheless, atmosphere, not topography, was Cuyp’s primary concern, and the result is this quiet, reflective image of an Arcadian Dutch countryside.

Not on view See artworks now on view

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Landscape with Herdsmen, mid-1650s

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

Probably (sale, by J. A. Jolles and H. de Winter, Amsterdam, 23 May 1764, no. 41, bought in). C. Price, London; Frederick Howard, 5th earl of Carlisle [1748-1825], London, and Castle Howard, Yorkshire, by 1771;[1] by descent in the Howard family to George James Howard, 9th earl of Carlisle [1843-1911], London, and Castle Howard; purchased September 1907 by (P. & D. Colnaghi, London), half share with (M. Knoedler & Co., London and New York);[2] sold July 1909 to William Andrews Clark [1839-1925], New York; bequest 1926 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] According to Alan Chong (“Aelbert Cuyp and the Meaning of Landscape,” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1992: 374, 375 n. 1), the painting was sold by Price to Howard in 1771 or shortly before. This information comes from an 1865 inventory in the Castle Howard archives of the Earl of Carlisle’s house on Grosvenor Place in London, in which the painting is listed as number 92. The earl in 1865 would have been the Reverend William George Howard, 8th earl of Carlisle (1808-1889), who succeeded to the title in December of the previous year.
[2] The painting is stock number 11463 in the M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Painting Stockbook 5, 8800-12652, 1899 April -1911 December, p. 149; copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1815

  • Probably Pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt, VanDyke, and other Artists of the Flemish and Dutch Schools, British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1815, no. 57.[1]

1822

  • Probably Pictures of the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and Dutch Schools, British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1822, no. 136 or no. 138.

1828

  • Probably Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and Dutch Masters, British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1828, no. 83.

1853

  • Probably Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French and English Masters, British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom, London, 1853, no. 7.

1861

  • Possibly Royal Dublin Society, 1861, no. 61, as Cattle Piece.[2]

1959

  • Loan Exhibition. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art: A Benefit Exhibition in Honor of the Gallery's Centenary, Wildenstein, New York, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1978

  • The William A. Clark Collection: An exhibition marking the 50th Anniversary of the installation of The Clark Collection at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, no catalogue.

2001

  • Aelbert Cuyp, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, no. 25, repro.

2016

  • Drawings for Paintings in the Age of Rembrandt, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, 2016-2017, no. 81, repro.

Bibliography

1829

  • Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829-1842: 5(1834):309, no. 93.

1853

  • "The British Institution. The Old Masters.” The Art-Journal 5 (July 1853): 173.

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):129, no. 424.

  • Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907-1928: 2(1908):123, no. 424.

1913

  • Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 1(1913):240, no. 57; 241, no. 136 or 138; 242, no. 83; 244, no. 7.

1925

  • Carroll, Dana H. Catalogue of Objects of Fine Art and Other Properties at the Home of William Andrews Clark, 962 Fifth Avenue. Part I. Unpublished manuscript, n.d. (1925): 134, no. 74.

1928

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection. Washington, 1928: 38.

1930

  • Holmes, Jerrold. "The Cuyps in America." Art in America 18, no. 4 (June 1930): 185, no. 31.

1932

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection. Washington, 1932: 43, no. 2063, as Landscape with Cattle, Shepherd and Horses.

1955

  • Breckenridge, James D. A handbook of Dutch and Flemish paintings in the William Andrews Clark collection. Washington, 1955: 11, repro.

1959

  • Corcoran Gallery of Art. Masterpieces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, 1959: 14, repro.

1967

  • Dattenberg, Heinrich. Niederrheinansichten holländischer Künstler des 17. Jahrhunderts. Die Kunstdenkmäler des Rheinlands 10. Düsseldorf, 1967: 74, no. 82.

1975

  • Reiss, Stephen. Aelbert Cuyp. Boston, 1975: 126, no. 89, repro.

1986

  • Sutton, Peter C. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Washington and Grand Rapids, 1986: 299, fig. 451.

1988

  • Heugten, Siraar van. "Grazende modellen: Aspecten van het Nederlandse veestuk.” In Meesterlijk Vee: Nederlandse Veeschilders 1600–1900. Edited by C. Boschma. Exh. cat. Dordrechts Museum; Fries Museum, Leeuwarden. Zwolle, 1988: 23-24, repro.

1992

  • Chong, Alan. "Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape." Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1992: 373-375, no. 133.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 48, 50 n. 13, as Five Cows, Herdsmen and Two Riders..

2001

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Aelbert Cuyp. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Washington, 2001: no. 25, 142-143, 197-198, repro.

  • Coyle, Laura, and Dare Myers Hartwell, eds. Antiquities to Impressionism: The William A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, DC, 2001: 22-23, 67, repro.

2021

  • Enklaar, Marlies and Sander Paarlberg, ed. In the Light of Cuyp: Aelbert Cuyp & Gainsborough, Constable, Turner. Exh. cat. Dordrechts Museum 2021-2022. Dodrecht, 2021: 72-73, no. 20.

Inscriptions

lower right: A. cuyp. .

Wikidata ID

Q20177325

You may be interested in

Loading Results