Catalogue entry no. 22 by William W. Robinson:
On March 26, 1867, Henry Adams—journalist, historian, and direct descendant of the second and sixth U.S. presidents—wrote that his friend Francis Turner Palgrave “instigated me into going to an auction sale and giving £12.0. for a Cuyp. I fully expect to be ruined by him ultimately, for drawings are my mortal point and I can’t resist.” Adams, who lived in London from 1861 to 1868 as secretary to his father, U.S. minister to Great Britain, did not, as his letter implies, acquire Cuyp’s View of Rhenen at auction, but from the dealer P. & D. Colnaghi. The latter, as Adams recorded on a former mount or backing, had purchased it for £20 in 1866 at the sale of the collection of Henry Wellesley, principal of New Inn Hall, University of Oxford, and Adams bought it from Colnaghi in March 1867 for £12.1.6.
The renowned landscapist Aelbert Cuyp specialized in cattle and equestrian scenes, as well as views of shipping near his native Dordrecht. Suffused with golden sunlight, his mature paintings convey a serene, idyllic mood unequaled by any other Dutch master. About two hundred drawings by Cuyp survive. In addition to landscapes and a few portraits, they include studies of figures, farm animals, and plants that constitute a stock of motifs to incorporate into pictures. Most of the landscapes are fully resolved, autonomous compositions, often elaborated in refined combinations of gray and brown washes, yellowish green and greenish brown transparent watercolor, white opaque watercolor and, in darker passages, a coating of gum arabic to deepen the shadows. Although many of the works are highly finished, Cuyp did not produce them for sale. Nor did he make them as preparatory studies for paintings, although he occasionally reproduced motifs from drawings in the backgrounds of pictures and, in a few instances, adapted an entire composition as the basis for a work in oil.
View of Rhenen belongs to a group of about fifteen impressive views of Dutch cities that are similar in dimensions, media, and topographical accuracy. None of Cuyp’s drawings bear dates, and their chronology is difficult to establish precisely. Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann dates these large panoramas to circa 1642–46 and traces Cuyp’s preference for the oblong format to the example of Jan van de Velde, whose series of etchings Landscapes and Ruins (1615) depicts exceptionally broad vistas with low skies.
Rhenen lies to the southeast of Utrecht, on a slope that descends about thirty meters to the banks of the Lower Rhine. Rising above the low-lying region across the river to the west, south, and east known as De Betuwe and punctuated by the tower of the late Gothic church of Saint Cunera, the picturesque silhouette of the city and its medieval walls and gates attracted legions of Dutch artists. These included Hercules Segers, Pieter Saenredam, Rembrandt, and Jacob van Ruisdael. In the Harvard work, Cuyp drew the city from the Grebbeberg, a hill to the east, looking toward De Betuwe. Taking advantage of the breadth of the paper support, he meticulously recorded the walls’ long, diagonal course to the river. At the center of the drawing is the Bergpoort (or Oostpoort), a broad arch in the perimeter wall that led to the outer gate of the medieval bastion, flanked by low conical roofs and the taller structure that was the main portal to the city. At the right is the tower of Saint Cunera’s, which Cuyp accentuated with a dense application of white opaque watercolor. The small, conical tower to the right of Saint Cunera’s housed the staircase of the adjacent house. Joris van der Haagen drew the skyline from a point to the south, downhill from where Cuyp sat (Fig. 1). In Van der Haagen’s view, the medieval gatehouse appears directly behind the arch of the Bergpoort, and the stair tower is immediately to the right of the tall portal.
Cuyp evidently visited Rhenen at least twice. A study of the city from the northeast must date from 1641 or earlier, because he incorporated it into a painting of that year. Two other views of Rhenen, one drawn from a standpoint north of that in the Harvard sheet and another showing the city from the northwest, were probably executed, like the Harvard study, a few years later.
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