Cuyp, Or Kuyp, Albert, a Dutch painter, born at Dort in 1605, died after 1683. His father, Jacob Gerritse Cuyp, a painter of landscapes and animals, and one of the founders of the academy of St. Luke in Dort, was his first and probably his only master. A strict Calvinist and devoted to his art, he passed the greater part of his time at a small country seat near Dort, where his room, the walls still covered with designs for which he rarely received orders, is shown to visitors. There is no record of his death. His pictures were singularly neglected for many years after his death, and it is said that down to 1750 no one of them had sold for more than 30 florins, or about $12. England seems to have been the first to appreciate them, for shortly after this time the demands of English collectors caused a considerable rise in their value; and Horace Walpole, in a letter written in 1774, mentions with astonishment that a picture by Cuyp had just been sold for £290. Within the last 50 years they have frequently brought from 1,000 to 1,500 guineas, and are to be found in great numbers in private and public galleries in England. Cuyp's range of subjects was extensive.

He painted scenes on the Maas river, in the neighborhood of Dort, with herds of cattle and horsemen, cavalry skirmishes, horse fairs, sea pieces, moonlights, winter scenes, and interiors, all of which show a high degree of excellence. Some of his drawings, heightened by water colors, are gems of art. His best pictures are his landscapes, to attain perfection in which he made studies in the open air at all hours of the day. Dr. Waagen has summed up his artistic qualities as follows: "In loftiness of conception, knowledge of aerial percuzco spective, with the greatest glow and warmth of serene atmosphere, Cuyp stands unrivalled, and may justly be called the Dutch Claude. In the impasto, the breadth and freedom of execution, he greatly resembles Rembrandt." Unlike most Dutch painters, he did not finish his pictures very elaborately, but strove to impress them with the stamp of intellectual rather than of manual labor.