Artist: Aelbert Jacobsz Cuyp
Date: 1842
Size: 67 x 84 cm
Technique: Oil On Canvas
This is a copy after the left half of Aelbert Cuyp’s View of Dordrecht from the North.10 The original, which was painted around the mid-1650s, spent a long time as two separate parts that were not rejoined until 1841-42.11 That establishes a terminus ante quem for this work. It was probably made in the eighteenth century in England, as that is where it comes from and where the original has been since then.12 Although doubts about the authenticity of the present work were already being aired in 1855 in the earliest catalogue of the Museum van der Hoop, it continued to be regarded as one of Cuyp’s finest paintings for the remainder of the century.13 In 1858 Thoré, for example, considered it as authentic ‘without any doubt’, and in the later catalogues of the Van der Hoop museum it was also presented as genuine.14 At the end of the century Hofstede de Groot saw the original View of Dordrecht from the North in the London collection of the Englishman Captain Holford. He concluded that the Rijksmuseum’s picture had to have been copied after it.15 That was not generally accepted, though, and a fierce argument broke out over the work. The fact that the Netherlands no longer had a first-rate Cuyp undoubtedly contributed to the uproar. Six put up particularly stiff resistance to the idea that the Rijksmuseum piece was a copy.16 He considered it too good for that, and thought that it had to be an autograph replica. However, once Bredius had sided with Hofstede de Groot the copy theory gradually gained the upper hand.17 It is now generally acknowledged that it is a very skilful but non-contemporary painting made after one half of a Cuyp masterpiece. It is on canvas with a remarkably coarse weave for the eighteenth century that makes it look much older. Erlend de Groot, 2022 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements
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