Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 2, 1909.djvu/20

 4 AELBERT CUYP SECT. earlier years. The great bulk of his pictures were undoubtedly produced between 1640 and 1675. A few etchings and a large number of drawings testify to his skill in these branches of his art. PUPILS AND IMITATORS OF AELBERT CUYP Cuyp had no school in the true sense, such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, or Gerard Dou founded. The only painter, who is regarded with more or less reason as his pupil, was BAREND VAN CALRAET (i649-after 1715), an unproductive Dordrecht artist of little talent. He painted interiors of cowhouses in the style of his master, and, later, Rhenish landscapes in the manner of H. Saftleven. When, almost a century after Cuyp's death, his pictures had won general esteem and his masterpieces were ranked with those of a Rembrandt, the individual character of his river landscapes, glowing with sunlight and enlivened with fine cattle, inspired the brothers Jacob (1756-1815) and Abraham (1733-1826) van Strij with a desire to imitate Cuyp. Their pictures, though at a first glance surprising and deceptive, were merely mechanical and uninspired pasticcios. They selected motives from different pictures by Cuyp and worked them up into new composi- tions, which had no relation to nature. They added nothing of their own, nor did they slavishly copy whole compositions. Their works, when painted, may have seemed very like the originals ; but in the course of time their pictures have been so much affected by chemical changes that they can now be detected at once by a peculiar cracking in the surface of the paint, and can scarcely be confused any longer with the works of Cuyp. It is assumed that these painters did not imitate Cuyp with any intention to defraud collectors, but that their signatures have been replaced by other hands with the forged signatures of Cuyp. In the nineteenth century the English painter T. SIDNEY COOPER (1803-1902) imitated Cuyp in externals throughout a long life, but with steadily diminishing success. In view of Cuyp's extraordinary versatility, it is not surprising that this or that painter should have found a special field in which he produced work very similar to that of Cuyp. But there is no reason to infer a direct connection between such painters and the master. Thus, for example, GIJSBERT D'HONDECOETER (1604-53) anc ^ GOVERT CAMPHUYSEN (about 1623-72) painted pictures of sitting hens, which in colour, lighting, and composition show a marked likeness to Cuyp's versions of the theme. Another painter, JOHANNES SPRUYT (1627-28-1671) shows in a recently discovered picture of "Ducks in the water among reeds," a notable affinity to similar pictures by Cuyp. As Aelbert Cuyp's pictures have always been valued more highly than those of his father Jacob Gerritsz (1594-1651-1652), and of his uncle Benjamin Cuyp (1612-52), enterprising forgers have been tempted to erase the Christian name, replacing it by the letter A, in the signatures