Roelant Savery (or ''Roeland(t) Maertensz Saverij'', or ''de Savery'', or many variants; 1576 – buried 25 February 1639) was a
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
-born
Dutch Golden Age painter.
Life
Savery was born in
Kortrijk
Kortrijk ( , ; vls, Kortryk or ''Kortrik''; french: Courtrai ; la, Cortoriacum), sometimes known in English as Courtrai or Courtray ( ), is a Belgian city and municipality in the Flemish province of West Flanders.
It is the capital and large ...
. Like so many other artists, he belonged to an
Anabaptist family that fled north from the Spanish-occupied
Southern Netherlands
The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...
when Roelant was about 4 years old and settled in
Haarlem around 1585. He was taught painting by his older brother
Jacob Savery (c. 1565 – 1603) and
Hans Bol
Hans Bol or Jan Bol (16 December 1534 – 20 November 1593), was a Flemish-Belgian painter, print artist, miniaturist painter and draftsman.[Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...]
around 1604, where he became court painter of the Emperors
Rudolf II (1552–1612) and
Mathias (1557–1619), who had made their court a center of
mannerist art. Between 1606 and 1608 he traveled to
Tyrol
Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...
to study plants.
Gillis d'Hondecoeter became his pupil.
Before 1616 Savery moved back to Amsterdam, and lived in the
Sint Antoniesbreestraat
The Sint Antoniesbreestraat ("St. Anthony's Broad Street") is a street in the centre of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The street runs south from Nieuwmarkt square to the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates, where it continues as the Jodenbreestraat. ...
. In 1618 he settled in Utrecht, where he joined the
artist's guild
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ident ...
a year later. His nephew
Hans would become his most important assistant.
In 1621 Savery bought a large house on the Boterstraat in
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...
. The house had a large garden with flowers and plants, where a number of fellow painters, like
Adam Willaerts were frequent visitors. Savery had kept his house in Amsterdam, and had one child baptized in
Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam).
Savery was friends with
still life painters like
Balthasar van der Ast and
Ambrosius Bosschaert. In the 1620s he was one of the most successful painters in Utrecht, but later his life got troubled, perhaps because of
heavy drinking. Though he would have pupils until the late 1630s, amongst which
Allaert van Everdingen and
Roelant Roghman, he went bankrupt in 1638 and died in Utrecht half a year later.
Works
Savery primarily painted landscapes in the Flemish tradition of
Gillis van Coninxloo
Gillis van Coninxloo (now also referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo II but previously referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo III) (24 January 1544 – January 1607) was a Flemish painter of landscapes who played an important role in the development ...
, often embellished with many meticulously painted animals and plants, regularly with a mythological or biblical theme as background. He also painted multiple flower still lifes; bouquets in stone niches, sometimes with lizards such as ''
Flowers with Two Lizards'', insects or fallen petals and regarded as his best work.
His unique style of painting, related to the then reigning
Mannerism, has been highly popular with collectors and can be found in many museums in Europe and North America. His preparatory drawings are also valued highly.
Among his best-known works are several depictions of the now-extinct
dodo
The dodo (''Raphus cucullatus'') is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The ...
painted between 1611 and 1628.
[http://julianhume.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/History-of-the-dodo-Hume.pdf ] His nephew Hans a.k.a.
Jan Savery was also known for his paintings of the dodo (including a famous 1651 illustration currently held at the
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum or OUMNH, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It a ...
), which he probably copied from his uncle's work.
Savery's dodos
Savery is famous for being the most prolific and influential illustrator of the extinct
dodo
The dodo (''Raphus cucullatus'') is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, which is east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The dodo's closest genetic relative was the also-extinct Rodrigues solitaire. The ...
, having made at least ten depictions, often showing it in the lower corners. A famous painting of his from 1626, now called ''Edwards' Dodo'' as it was once owned by the ornithologist
George Edwards, has since become the standard image of a dodo. It is housed in the
Natural History Museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...
, London. This and his other images are the source for many other dodo illustrations.
Sources
External links
Savery at WGAWhale on the beach (1614)Tyrolean landscape''Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints'' a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes material on Roelant Savery (see index)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Savery, Roelant
1576 births
1639 deaths
Dutch Golden Age painters
Dutch male painters
Flemish Baroque painters
Dutch bird artists
Dutch still life painters
People from Kortrijk
Artists from Utrecht
Painters from Utrecht
Sibling artists