Aelbert Cuyp

The Duke of Modena;
Baron Clary, Paris,
His deceased sale, Paris, Escribe, 2 May 1872, lot 7 to Jacobi;
Jules Lenglart, Lille, by 1902;
His deceased sale, Paris, Chevallier, 10 March 1902, lot 38 for FF 2900 to Kleinberger;
By whom sold April 1902 for 3,025 Francs to Sedelmeyer;
With C. Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1902 (as the Prince of Orange as a Child);
By whom sold June 1902 to Heugel;
Henri Heugel, Paris, 1948;
In the possession Saam and Lily Nijstad since at least 1968.

Laren, Singer Museum, Het kind in de noord-nederlandse kunst, 1969, cat. no. 11;
Amsterdam, Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Kunsthandelaar en verzamelaar, 1970, cat. no. 19;
Dordrecht, Aelbert Cuyp en zijn familie, schilders te Dordrecht, 12 November 1977 - 8 January 1978, cat. no. 21.

C. Sedelmeyer, Catalogue of 100 Paintings, Paris 1902, cat. no. 3;
C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné..., vol. II, London 1909, p. 34, no. 94;
The Burlington Magazine, December 1968, unpaginated, reproduced fig LXV;
Kunsthandelaar en verzamelaar, Amsterdam 1970, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 19, reproduced p. 92;
Aelbert Cuyp en zijn familie, schilders te Dordrecht, exhibition catalogue, Dordrecht 1977, p. 70, reproduced p. 71;
A. Chong, Aelbert Cuyp and the Meanings of Landscape, New York 1992, doctoral dissertation, p. 338, cat. no. 97.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine flat panel, bevelled all round, which has clearly always remained perfectly stable. The inner painted wooden alcove framing the child is finely preserved, as is in particular the beautiful detail of the costume and the cap and toy or teething rattle on a little chain, all immaculately intact. There are one or two tiny marks retouched in the background and the face has slightly uneven glazing around the highlights, which seem to have been rather more cleaned than elsewhere in the past and where there are some strengthening touches, however the main features in the face, the nose, eyes and chin, are all untouched and intact. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The coats-of-arms denote a female member of the Van der Burch family.  Chong (see Literature) proposes that the sitter may have been Dina, eldest daughter of Johan van der Burch and Margaretha Berck, who was baptised 8 July 1652.  Other daughters were baptised in 1656 and 1657, but this picture is less likely to date from after the mid 1650s.  Johan van der Burch was later a Regent of the Heilige Geest Pest-huisin Dordrecht in 1675, where he served alongside Aelbert Cuyp and four other Regents.

Although Aelbert Cuyp painted landscapes from the early 1640s onwards, he continued to work in the family painting practice, painting portraits, sometimes in collaboration with his father Jacob Gerritsz., from the mid 1640s onwards.  His father and his father's half-brother Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp died in 1651, and for a few years after that, until circa 1655, Aelbert continued to produce portraits such as this one in the style of his father.  It was perhaps his inheritance of the substantial estate of his mother upon her death in 1654 which allowed him to give up portrait-painting to concentrate on landscapes. 

Dr Alan Chong has confirmed the attribution after first-hand inspection of the original.