Old Masters Day Auction

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 105. Paradise landscape with a skewbald, cows, stags, a lion, dog, goats, parrots and other animals, the Conversion of Saint Hubert beyond.

Roelandt Savery

Paradise landscape with a skewbald, cows, stags, a lion, dog, goats, parrots and other animals, the Conversion of Saint Hubert beyond

Restricted SpeciesVAT applies to hammer price and buyer's premium

Lot Closed

July 7, 01:05 PM GMT

Estimate

80,000 - 120,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Roelandt Savery

Kortrijk 1576 - 1639 Utrecht

Paradise landscape with a skewbald, cows, stags, a lion, dog, goats, parrots and other animals, the Conversion of Saint Hubert beyond

signed and dated lower right: .ROELANDT / SAVERÿ. FE / 1627

oil on oak panel

unframed: 38 x 54.9 cm.; 15 x 21⅝ in.

framed: 54.6 x 71 cm.; 21½ x 28 in.

This lot contains endangered species. Sotheby’s recommends that buyers check with their own government regarding any importation requirements prior to placing a bid. For example, US regulations restrict or prohibit the import of certain items to protect wildlife conservation. Please note that Sotheby’s will not assist buyers with the shipment of this lot to the US. A buyer’s inability to export or import these lots cannot justify a delay in payment or sale cancellation. Please note this lot should have a dagger symbol. VAT will be charged at 20% on the hammer price, although in appropriate circumstances the VAT may be cancelled or refunded. Please refer to the Conditions of Business online for further VAT information.

Anonymous sale (‘La Succession de Madam X’), Paris, Piasa, 24 June 1998, lot 5, for 1,000,000 French Francs;
On the art market, Paris;
Whence acquired by a private collector.

This painting numbers among one of Roelandt Savery's last – dated 1627, Savery painted infrequently after 1630, but up until this time he continued to express the interest in wild animals and nature that he developed during his time at the court of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, where he worked between about 1604 and 1613.

Rudolph II assembled the greatest Kunst- und Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) in Europe at that time, filled with exotic specimens and rare objects. In order to enrich it further, he employed his court painter, Savery, not only to record wonders of landscape during travels around the Tyrol in 1606–7, but also to depict the astounding array of animals in Rudolph's own menagerie. Savery's resultant drawings served as invaluable models for his later Paradise landscapes, such as the present work, which includes a mixture of animals native to the Tyrol, such as the wild boar, stags and goats, but also beasts from further afield, including the lion and the macaws and parakeet. The motif of the heifer returning the viewer's gaze over its shoulder recurs in a number of Savery's paintings, and the barking dog features in several of his hunting scenes.

Savery returned to Amsterdam in 1613, where he began to combine exotic subjects with biblical or mythological ones, right up until the late 1620s when this work was painted. Here, the conversion of Saint Hubert is picked out in fine detail in the middle distance to the left – the saint is depicted kneeling before the white stag, which carries the crucifix in its antlers.