Benjamin Cuyp "the Adoration Of The Shepherds"

Benjamin-Gerritsz Cuyp. Oil on oak panel "The Adoration of the Shepherds" unsigned. Dutch school. 40.5 X 60 cm (39.5 X 59 cm visible) Benjamin-Gerritsz Cuyp (1612-1652). After being a pupil of his half-brother, Jacob Cuyp (1594-1651), Benjamin worked in Dordrecht (United Provinces) where, in 1631, he became a master in the guild of painters. Very early on, the art of Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669) exerted a strong influence on the profession of the young painter from Dordogne. The Leiden master is Cuyp's senior, only by the six years that separate them, so it is notable to point out the fact that the multiple borrowings from Rembrandt, noted in Cuyp, were made from works belonging to the youth of the great Leiden master. Benjamin Cuyp produced a series of paintings evocative of the theme of the Adoration of the Shepherds as well as that of the Annunciation to the Shepherds. Around thirty Adorations of the Shepherds have been listed and are in museums (Berlin, Bremen, Bordeaux, Dordrecht, Madrid, Mannheim, Poitiers, Roanne, Utrecht, etc.). It is worth noting that in 1619, a synod was held in Dordrecht, bringing together representatives of many European churches. The event certainly did not fail to impress the young Cuyp, who undoubtedly developed within himself a very strong religious feeling. These evocations that the young artist from Dordrecht treated were in great demand by his clients and this success led to repetitions for obvious commercial reasons. Our painting bears on the back an old attribution to Rembrandt and an inventory number. But this is not such a ludicrous idea, as this Adoration of the Shepherds is so Rembrandt-esque. During the decade 1630-1640, Cuyp's works claimed to be parallel to those of Rembrandt, even going beyond, even to the point of parodying the master's work. The obvious awkwardness, the jerky style, the rusticity of his models represented with coarse features and expressive faces, are they not proof of Cuyp's talent, who concentrated his work on the effects of light, on the theatrical lighting, and on this supernatural radiance coming from the sky which places at the center of the play a poor, badly dressed wretch who does not seem to take the measure of his situation. Cuyp made Rembrandt even more absolute than that of the master of Leiden. Rembrandt was very little interested in the theme of the Adoration of the Shepherds. One can find a work by Rembrandt, the Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661) where the master focuses his work on the effects of light in the center of the painting to the detriment of the protagonists of the conspiracy who are stigmatized by faces with coarse and clumsy features, almost deformed, as Benjamin Cuyp did in 1630, some thirty years earlier. Wooden frame and gilded stucco from the end of the 19th century (some accidents). Uncracked oak panel. Oil in good condition. 6800 euros