ALBERT CUYP (1620-1691), the son of Jacob Gerritsz by Grietche Dierichsdochter (Dierich's daughter), was born at Dord recht in Oct. 162o, and married in 1658 Cornelia Bosman. By right of his possessions at Dordwyck, Cuyp was privileged to sit in the high court of the province. As a citizen he was sufficiently well known to be placed on the list of those from whom William III., stadtholder of the Netherlands, chose the regency of Dordrecht in 1672. His death, and his burial on Nov. 7, 1691 in the church of the Augustines of Dordrecht, are historically proved. He seldom dates his pictures, but it appears probable that he ceased to paint about 1675. That he was a pupil of van Goyen has been surmised on the strength of his early style. His works are sup posed to be divisible into such as bear the distinctive marks C. or A. C. in cursive characters, the letters A. C. in Roman capitals, and the name "A. Cuyp" in full, but spurious examples exist. Generally speaking, the finished examples of Cuyp's middle and final period all bear his full signature.
Familiar subjects of the master's earlier period are stables with cattle and horses (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Leningrad and Brussels museums) . Occasionally he painted portraits in the bust form familiar to his father, one of which, dated 1649, is in the National Gallery, London. More frequently he produced portraits of ladies and gentlemen on horseback, in which the life and dress of the period and the forms of horses are most vividly represented (Buckingham Palace, Bridgewater Gallery, Louvre and Dresden Museums). Later on we find him fondest of expansive scenery with meadows and cattle and flocks, or rivers and barges in the foreground, and distances showing the towers and steeples of Dordrecht. Cuyp is to the river and its banks what Willem Van develde is to calm seas and Hobbema to woods. In his best period from about 165 5- 7 o, his landscapes are saturated with golden light and masterpieces of an acknowledged beauty, the "Riders with the Boy and Herdsman" in the National Gallery, London, the Meuse, with Dordrecht in the distance, in three or four varieties, in the Bridgewater, Grosvenor, and Brownlow collec tions, the "Piper with Cows," in the Louvre attest his power.
John Smith's Catalogue raison,ze of the Dutch and Flemish painters, in 9 vols. (184o), enumerated 335 of Albert Cuyp's works, of which in 1877 Sir J. A. Crowe wrote in this encyclopaedia that "it would be difficult now to find more than a third of them." In C. Hofstede de Groot's Catalogue raisonne, vol. ii. (19o9), revising Smith's, the number is extended to nearly 85o, but he accepts too readily the attributions of sale catalogues ; the work is, however, the best modern authority on the painter.