Jacob van Strij
Cows in a meadow
Oil on panel : 72,5 X 96,5 cm
Signed bottom left
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
This is a comparative item
Painting for Sale
In short
The brothers Abraham and Jacob van Strij are well-known late 18th/early 19th century painters from Dordrecht. Our Jacob specialised in these Italianate landscapes with cattle, which were inspired by the at that period highly popular 17th century fellow townsman Aelbert Cuyp.
About Jacob van Strij
Dutch painter
Dordrecht 1756 – 1815 Dordrecht
Painter of sunny Italianate landscapes with cattle.
Younger brother of Abraham I van Strij (Dordrecht 1753 – 1826 Dordrecht), who painted interior scenes, portraits and occasionally also Italianate landscapes with cattle.
Both brothers started studying painting under their father, Leendert van Strij (Dordrecht 1728 – 1798 Dordrecht), who was a decoration and house painter. He also ran a painter’s shop.
Abraham studied also under Joris Ponse, a colleague decoration and house painter of his father, who furthermore painted a few nice still lifes.
Our Jacob went to Antwerp from 1774 to 1776, where he studied at the local Academy and also under the Neo-Classical history painter Andries Lens.
Both brothers spent their entire career in their hometown Dordrecht. They started working in their father’s decoration workshop, where they produced (sometimes together) large paintings which were incorporated in the panelling of salons and dining rooms, usually with bucolic peasant scenes. In April 1787 they took over their father’s business together.
Jacob got married in 1786, Abraham in 1783. They had seven and six children.
Both brothers were strongly influenced by 17th century examples:
- Jacob by Aelbert Cuyp,
- Abraham I by Pieter de Hooch.
During the latter part of his career (at least since 1798) Jacob suffered from gout, as can be seen in the touching portrait of him, painted in 1812 (three years before his death) by Pieter Christoffel Wonder. Despite this disease, which he especially suffered from in his fingers, Jacob kept painting until his death.
About our painting
Jacob van Strij’s Italianate landscapes with cattle, bathing in the golden light of sunset, are heavily indebted to the 17th century Dordrecht painter Aelbert Cuyp (1620 – 1691), some to Jan Both, Meindert Hobbema and Adriaen van de Velde. He clearly venerated the painting of the Golden Age, which was a prosperous period for the Dutch Republic.
It was in fact around the time that both brothers van Strij were born, at the middle of the 18th century, that the English art dealers started a craze for these bright, elegant and picturesque landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp. Many of his paintings, then mostly still in local collections in Dordrecht, became highly coveted works of art for the international, and especially English, buyers.
This must be an early painting by Jacob van Strij: the cows are still strongly inspired by examples by Cuyp, with rather round, plump bodies.
Later he painted them with greater attention to more muscular bodies with slimmer contours.
Why should you buy this painting?
Because it radiates such an idyllic, warm atmosphere.
Comparative paintings
Click photos for more details
