Aelbert Cuyp - Horse at the Trough - image-1

Lot 1065 Dα

Aelbert Cuyp - Horse at the Trough

Auction 1076 - overview Cologne
19.11.2016, 11:00 - Old Master Paintings and Drawings, Sculpture
Estimate: 80.000 € - 120.000 €
Result: 99.200 € (incl. premium)

Aelbert Cuyp

Horse at the Trough

Oil on panel (parquetted). 36 x 52 cm.
Signed lower left: A. Cuyp.

The art historiographer Arnold Houbraken informs us that Aelbert Cuyp was an excellent painter of horses. He describes a depiction of the local riding school by Cuyp in his “Groote Schouburgh” in which the artist painted “the finest horses, that he had seen himself, so that one could recognise them”. Aelbert Cuyp's equestrian portraits, hunting, and travel paintings show how much care and attention the artist gave to representing each horse with its own unique features.
This depiction of a brown horse in profile is presumably a horse portrait given in commission to the finest painter of landscapes and animals in Dordrecht by its proud owner. It is comparable to the depiction of a horse in profile by Cuyp in which he uses a highly unusual compositional element: The rider is depicted dismounted and sitting so that his head is obscured by the horse's rump, indicating clearly that the horse is the painting's protagonist and not the rider (ill. 1, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, inv. no. VdV 11). The profile depiction of a horse reiterates a long tradition in horse painting, to which Giulio Romano's frescoes in the Palazzo del Té also belong.
This work displays an unusual treatment of light. The horse itself is sparingly lit by Cuyp's characteristic light, accentuating the subtle brown tones and shimmering surface of its coat, whereas the dog and the girl in the foreground are bathed in bright light inspired by the Italianate school. The background landscape with a shepherd and two cows in the background lit by warm, mild light is particularly typical of Cuyp's style.

Provenance

Sawson Turner Collection, Yarmouth, 1842. - Auctioned by Schneider, Paris, 6.4.1876, lot 4. - Sir. G. Donaldson Collection, London. - Legatt Gallery, London, 1928. - Auctioned in London, 13.12.1935, lot 99. - Auctioned in Geneva, 2.4.1938, lot 14. - Private collection, Europe.

Literature

John Smith: Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. London 1842, (=vol. 9), p. 659, no. 33. - Cornelis Hofstede de Groot: Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. Esslingen 1908, vol. 2, p. 147, no. 510.