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Cuyp, Ruisdael, Hobbema, and Potter

Melville acquired Frank Cundall’s The Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland in 1891, the year it was published, and the last year of his life, when he was still revising “At the Hostelry,” his poetic colloquy among Old Master painters (Sealts no. 169). Whereas Melville’s copy of Gower’s The Figure Painters of Holland, published in 1880, covered twelve figure painters, his copy of Cundall’s book covered only four landscape and pastoral painters. Unlike like many of the Dutch artists in Melville’s print collection, Cuyp, Ruisdael, Hobbema, and Potter had not yet been well represented, even in 1891, in the growing collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Nor do any of these artists appear in the unfinished manuscript of “At the Hostelry.” But Melville collected one or more prints by each. He had access to substantial, illustrated essays on each in the copy of The Works of Eminent Masters he acquired in 1871. And he could have seen paintings by each of those artists during his visits to museums and galleries in England, France, Italy, and the Netherlands in 1849 and 1857. 

  • Works cited in Cuyp, Ruisdael, Hobbema, and Potter:

  • “Annual Report 1856-57.” Brooklyn Museum Bulletin 18.5 (Fall 1957): 14-18. 

  • Baetjer, Katherine. “Buying Pictures for New York: The Founding Purchase of 1871.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 39 (2004) 161-235.  

  • Blankert, Albert.  Dutch 17th Century Italianate Landscape Painters. Soest: Davaco, 1978. 

    Burnett, D. G. “Landscapes of Aelbert Cuyp.” Apollo Magazine 89 (May 1969): 372-380.

  • Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Paintings by Modern and Old Masters, and of Water-Colors and Drawings, formed by M. E. Sercétan. Sold at Sedelmeyer’s Galleries, Paris, July 1889. 

    Catalogue of the Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Published by the Museum. October 1905, with Addenda to September, 1909, Inclusive. 

    Chong, Alan. “Aelbert [Albert] Cuyp.” Grove, 8: 293-98.

  • ------. "Aelbert Cuyp." In Sutton, 290-304. 

    ------. “New Dates of Works from Aelbert Cuyp’s Early Career.” Burlington Magazine 133 (September 1991): 606-12. 

    Cundall, Frank.  The Landscape and Pastoral Painters of Holland: Ruisdael, Hobbema, Cuyjp, Potter.  New York: Scribner and Welford, 1891 (S 169).

  • Duplessis, Georges. The Wonders of Engraving . . . Illustrated with Ten Reproductions in Autotype and Thirty-Four Wood Engravings, by P. Sellier. London: Low and Marston, 1871 (Sealts, no. 195).  

  • Frelinghuysen, Alice Cooney, et al. Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1993. 

  • Hall, S. C. Gems of European Art. London: G. Virtue, 1846. 

    Hand-book, No. 6 (May to November, 1891): Part 1, Pictures by Old Masters in the Old Eastern Gallery & Part 2, Loan Collections and Recent Gifts to the Museum in the Old Easter Gallery. Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://library.metmuseum.org/record=b1357655~S1  

  • Harris, Ann Sutherland, et. al. Landscape Painting in Rome, 1595-1675.  New York: R.L. Feigen, 1985.  

    Hazlitt, William. Criticisms on Art, and Sketches of the Picture Galleries of England. Edited by his son. 2 vol. in 1. London: J. Templeman, 1843 (Sealts no. 263a).  

  • Jameson, Anna. Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries in London. London: Saunders and Otley, 1844.

  • Metcalf, Eleanor Melville. Herman Melville: Cycle and Epicycle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953. 

  • Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. New York: Wiley, 1860-62. 5 vol. 

  • Shaw-Taylor, Desmond. “Aelbert Cuyp: Herdsmen with Cows.” In Rembrandt to Gainsborough: Masterpieces from Dulwich Picture Gallery. Merrell Holberton, 1999, 176-77. 

  • Slive, Seymour. “Additions of Jacob Ruisdeal.” Burlington Magazine 133 (September 1991): 598-606. 

    ------. Jacob van Ruisdael: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings, and Etchings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. 

    ------, and H. R. Hoetink. Jacob van Ruisdael. New York: Abbeville Press, 1981. 

    Stechow, Wolfgang. Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century. London: Phaidon, 1966. 

    Sutton, Peter C, et. al. Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987. 

  • The Works of Eminent Masters in Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Decorative Art. 2 vol. in 1. London: Cassell, 1854  (Sealts no. 564; MMO 564).
Cuyp, Ruisdael, Hobbema, and Potter