AELBERT CUYP
1620-1691CUYP'S FEW SURVIVING FIGURE STUDIES TEND TO DE-
pict young males, in particular shepherds. This example
is distinctive for its focus on a female figure as well as a
degree of finish surpassing that of most other figure
studies by him.^1 In a rich mixture of chalk and wash,
making liberal use of the white paper, he rendered the
nuanced play of sunlight and shadow over the form and
voluminous soft folds of the mildmaid's sleeves and
skirt. Cuyp's focus on the youthful charm of the milk-
maid anticipates eighteenth-century depictions of this
theme. The artist used the drawing for the main figure in
the painting The Dairymaid (Saint Petersburg, Hermi-
tage), a composition whose success is indicated by the
many variants produced by Cuyp's workshop.^2 Cuyp
probably executed the present drawing shortly before
beginning the Saint Petersburg Dairymaid, which is gen-
erally dated to circa 1647 (Reiss 1975, p. 92; Sokolova
1988, p. 15).1. Its handling is most comparable to Seated Shepherd ( Vorden,
Gatacre-de Stuers collection). SeeJ. Giltay, Aelbert Cuyp en Zijn
Familie, Schilders te Dordrecht, exh. cat. (Dordrechts Museum,
Dordrecht), 1977, no. 58.- Milking Cows (Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland); The
Milkmaid (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen); Young Milk-
maid in a Pasture (Hamburg, Weber collection in 1907 [as men-
tioned in C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes unà kritisches Ver-
zeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holldndischen Maler des
XVII. Jahrhunderts (Esslingen and Paris, 1908), vol. 2, no.
36?]).
222 DUTCH SCHOOL • CUYP94 A Milkmaid
Black and white chalk, graphite, and gray wash; H: 12
cm (4^3 / 4 in.); W: 14.7 cm (5I3/u in.)
86.GG.6y 2
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS! None.
PROVENANCE: L. Dupper, Dordrecht (sale, Roos, En-
gelberts, and Roos, Dordrecht, June 28-29, 1870, part
of lot 452); Victor de Stuers, The Hague; private collec-
tion, The Netherlands; art market, Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: Tentoonstelling van de Verzameling Oude
Teekeningen van Jhr. Mr. Victor de Stuers, Haagsche
Kunstkring, The Hague, November-December 1889,
no. 60.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Honderd Teekeningen naar Oud Hol-
landsche Meesters (Bloemendaal, n. d.), pi. 15; Aelbert
Cuyp: Originalabbildungen nach seinen vorzüglichsten Ge-
mdlden una Handzeichnungen (Leipzig, 1912), pi. 12 ; H.
Kleinmann, Handzeichnungen alter Meister der holldn-
dischen Malerschule (Leipzig, 1921), vol. 2, pi. 2; S. Reiss,
Aelbert Cuyp (London, 1975), p. 90, under no. 55; H.
Potterton, Dutch Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Paint-
ings in the National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, 1986), pp.
28-29, under no. 49; I. Sokolova, Dutch and Flemish
Paintings from the Hermitage, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, New York, and Art Institute of Chicago,
1988), p. 15, under no. 7.