Roelandt Savery

Landscape with swans near a waterfall

Lot Closed

January 30, 03:19 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Estate of Paul Kasmin

Roelandt Savery

Kortrijk 1576 - 1639 Utrecht

Landscape with swans near a waterfall

signed lower left, on rock: ROELANDT SAVERY FE

oil on panel

panel: 12 3/8 by 15 5/8 in.; 31.4 by 39.7 cm.

framed: 17 1/4 by 20 1/4 in.; 43.8 by 51.4 cm.

Comtesse Cavers, before 1923;
From whom purchased by Galerie J. & A. Le Roy Frères, Brussels, 1923;
Jules and Jean Lalière, Namur, by 1967, inv. no. 33;
With De Jonckheere, Paris, by 1996;
From whom acquired by the previous owner, May 1996;
By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, 31 January 2019, lot 215;
There acquired by Paul Kasmin.

K.J. Müllenmeister, Roelant Savery: Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1988, p. 263, no. 143A (taken with reservation due to insufficient photos and information).

Renowned landscape and animal painter Roelandt Savery earned the attention of Emperor Rudolf II and worked for his court in Prague between 1603-1613, where he studied Rudolf's menagerie and hunting grounds. The Emperor also sent Savery on an expedition to Tyrol in 1606-07, where the artist studied mountains and waterfalls that inspired later paintings, including the present. Despite the naturalistic details inspired by Savery's observations of real birds and landscape elements, this composition is almost certainly imagined. The active, Mannerist composition and inclusion of exotic flora and fauna appealed to Savery's courtly patrons in Prague as well as to his Dutch contemporaries.

Swans appear in several of Savery's works, although groupings of exotic birds form many species, presented as if coexisting peacefully in a bird's paradise, are better known.¹ This painting depicts a more realistic view of swans gathered around their nest, squabbling and grooming, with two ducks approaching to drink from the stream, and a crane diving toward the nest. Savery has evoked the noise and movement of the birds jostling with their open mouths and the stray feathers floating into the air and onto the surface of the water.

1. See for example: Landscape with birds, 1628, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 1082.