Roelandt Savery

Cassetta family, Bruges, at some point between 1619 and 1736 (their red wax seal twice on the reverse);

G. Powell Harper, 1951;

With Rafael Valls, London, by March 1989;

With Faustus Fine Art, London;

From whom acquired in February 1994 by the father of the present owners.

K.J. Müllenmeister, Roelant Savery, Neues und Ergänzungen zum Oeuvreverzeichnis, Freren 1988, Bremen 1991, pp. 63–64, no. 235A, reproduced. 

London, Rafael Valls, 'Exotic birds': an exhibition of bird paintings from 1700 to 1850, 15 November – 22 December 1989, no. 32. 

The early date of this painting – 1614 – places it amongst the work Savery produced just after he left Prague, where he was court painter to Emperor Rudolph II between 1604 and 1613. While in Prague, Savery became familiar with the royal menagerie, and the Emperor's predilection for curiosities and exotica likewise informed the artist's choice of subject matter, which he would go on to repeat through the rest of his career.

This imaginary landscape, which does not include a religious or mythological scene in the background as some others do, is filled with a colourful variety of land and waterfowl, including cassowaries, dodos, ostriches, crowned cranes, a large bustard, cockatoo, macaw, turkeys, herons and swans, amongst many other species. Indeed, these paintings, of which Savery produced a number, are commonly referred to as 'Bird' or 'Paradise' scenes.

Savery travelled in the Tyrol from 1606 to 1607, and the kind of ruins that appear in the present work recur in other paintings and drawings from this time and in the years afterwards; a similar round tower, for example, is found in the Landscape with Orpheus and the animals, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, dated 1628.¹

A very similar composition is reproduced in Müllenmeister's 1988 catalogue raisonné, which contains many of the same birds in similar positions, though the ostrich's neck on the left-hand side in that work is silhouetted against the sky, and the ruins and foliage in the background also differ. Müllenmeister associates the image with the painting listed as inv. no. 1082 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, but this is in fact a different work.²

Note on Provenance

Two of the red wax seals on the reverse of the panel bear the arms of the Cassetta family from Bruges. This family may be traced from the late 16th century until 1736, with the death of the last male descendant. The form of these seals suggests a date in the first half of the 17th century, perhaps close in date to this painting. Marco Cassetta (c.1565–c.1632/34) was probably born in Casale Monferrato, and came to Bruges before 1590. He was a successful real estate businessman and in 1608 acquired a rural property close to the city. In 1672, his son Engelbert Viglius Cassetta (1620–1678) married Anna Catharina, Countess of Ultvelt, a granddaughter of King Christian IV of Denmark. The third red wax seal depicts a flag trophy, and probably dates from the 18th century, though such insignia range from the 17th to the 19th centuries, in both The Netherlands and in France. It is most likely to relate to an institution, rather than an individual.³

¹ Inv. no. 1091; https://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/1704/?offset=7&lv=list

² https://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/1707/?offset=10&lv=list

³ We are grateful to Guido Dankwarth for his invaluable help in deciphering these seals.