ORThe Open Room
Digital gallery
Back to the NGA collection
We look across a body of calm water onto a wooden pier, rowboats, sailboats, and a town on the distant shore, all beneath a cloudy sky that takes up the top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape. The pier extends into the scene from the left edge, and stretches about a quarter of the way across the painting’s width. Three men and a woman, all with light skin, stand in a group near a fourth man, who sits on a piling at the front corner. They all wear charcoal-gray, muted blue, or fawn-brown clothing and hats. A rifle leans against the hip of one man, and another man looks out at the water, his back turned to the rest of the group. Three small boats are tied to the end of the dock. The one closest to us holds large containers, perhaps wrapped with rope. A fifth man bends over the far edge of the boat farthest from us. In another rowboat to our right, a man stands, another sits, and a third pulls on the oars. Four sailboats float into the distance down the center of the composition. To our right, the town along the far shore has closely spaced buildings with peaked roofs, a windmill, and a tall steeple, all painted with tones of peanut brown and tan. Light falls across the water from our left, casting the area closest to us in deep shadow. The surface of water is painted with tones of ivory and gray, matching the sky above. Light filters and streaks through ash-gray clouds across most of the sky. The clouds part to reveal a patch of pale blue at the upper left corner.
Read the visual description

We look across a body of calm water onto a wooden pier, rowboats, sailboats, and a town on the distant shore, all beneath a cloudy sky that takes up the top three-quarters of this horizontal landscape. The pier extends into the scene from the left edge, and stretches about a quarter of the way across the painting’s width. Three men and a woman, all with light skin, stand in a group near a fourth man, who sits on a piling at the front corner. They all wear charcoal-gray, muted blue, or fawn-brown clothing and hats. A rifle leans against the hip of one man, and another man looks out at the water, his back turned to the rest of the group. Three small boats are tied to the end of the dock. The one closest to us holds large containers, perhaps wrapped with rope. A fifth man bends over the far edge of the boat farthest from us. In another rowboat to our right, a man stands, another sits, and a third pulls on the oars. Four sailboats float into the distance down the center of the composition. To our right, the town along the far shore has closely spaced buildings with peaked roofs, a windmill, and a tall steeple, all painted with tones of peanut brown and tan. Light falls across the water from our left, casting the area closest to us in deep shadow. The surface of water is painted with tones of ivory and gray, matching the sky above. Light filters and streaks through ash-gray clouds across most of the sky. The clouds part to reveal a patch of pale blue at the upper left corner.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

A Pier Overlooking Dordrecht

Aelbert Cuyp

Date
early 1640s
Medium
oil on panel
Dimensions
overall: 44.5 × 75.9 cm (17 1/2 × 29 7/8 in.) framed: 63.5 × 93.66 × 4.45 cm (25 × 36 7/8 × 1 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
2012.73.1
Credit line
Gift of George M. and Linda H. Kaufman
Time span
1601 to 1650
Department
CNE-B
Original NGA record Wikidata

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • Baroque
  • Dutch
  • Netherlands
  • landscape
  • Acquired after launch of Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (NGA Online Editions)
  • Harbor
  • Dordrecht
  • Pier
  • ship
  • boat
Provenance

(Sale, by De Vries, Roos, and Brondgeest, Amsterdam, 10-12 May 1853, 2nd day, no. 16); (Lamme).[1] Herman de Kat, Dordrecht; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 2-3 May and 7-8 May 1866, no. 17); Louis Viardot [1800-1883], Paris; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 30 April 1884, no. 2). Alfred Thieme, Leipzig, by 1889.[2] (Galerie Sedelmeyer, Paris).[3] private collection, Basel;[4] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 30 November 1973, no. 124); (Brod Gallery, London). (Julie Kraus, Paris), in 1976.[5] private collection;[6] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 18 April 1985, no. 2); George M. [1932-2001] and Linda H. Kaufman, Norfolk, Virginia; Kaufman Americana Foundation, Norfolk; gift 2012 to NGA. [1] This might be A.J. Lamme, an auctioneer in Rotterdam, or D.A. Lamme, an art expert in Paris. [2] Thieme lent the painting to an exhibition in 1889 in Leipzig. [3] The 1973 sale catalogue lists Sedelmeyer in the provenance, and there is a red wax seal in the bottom right corner on the reverse of the painting impressed with the words "Galerie Sedelmeyer Paris." [4] The painting is described as "the property of a Basle [_sic_] collector" in the 1973 sale catalogue. [5] This information is given in _Aelbert Cuyp_, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery, London; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, New York and London, 2001: no. 8, 189. [6] The painting is described as "the property of a gentleman" in the 1985 sale catalogue.

NGA object ID 100922. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.