(Dordrecht 1620-1691)
Cows in a field, a town in the background, black chalk on laid paper, 9,5 x 18 cm, browned (light-bleaching), mounted, framed, (Sch)

Provenance:
Auction sale Christie's New York, 2nd March 2010, Lot 112 (as Aelbert Cuyp circle);
Private collection, Italy

We are grateful to Prof. Arthur Wheelock for the confirmation of the attribution on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph and for the scientific support

Cuyp may have sketched the present landscape study with a view of a town in the background in the open air. Several comparable landscape drawings by the artist, which he later reworked in his studio by adding brown washes or watercolor to details are existent. A stylistically comparable, albeit more detailed, landscape study is preserved in the Rijksmuseum (Inv. Nr. RP-T-100-106). The summary suggestion of the buildings, the trees and the cows can be also observed in the present drawing, which points to a date of execution in the early and mid 1650s. The town may represent a place near Cleve, which Cuyp visited several times. The church with the onion-shaped tower can be also seen in the aforementioned drawing in the Rijksmuseum "Cleves seen from the gallow’s hill " (19,2 x 27,6 cm, Inv. Nr. RP-T-00-106).