Roelandt Savery was born in Kortrijk in 1576. At an early age he left for Amsterdam, where he worked as an apprentice for his brother, Jacob Savery (1563 – before 1603). After the latter's death he moved to Prague in 1604, where he was appointed court painter to Rudolf II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Rudolf was a great lover of the arts and a passionate collector who employed many of the most important painters of the period, making his court in Prague a major center of late Mannerist art and scientific inquiry. [1] Among the artists working there were Bartholomeus Spranger and Hans von Aachen, as well as Joris and Jacob Hoefnagel, Adriaan de Vries, Giuseppe Arcimboldo and many others. His art gallery was one of the most important in all of Europe, and his Kunstkammer contained extraordinary natural specimens and curiosities from around the world.

 

In 1606 Rudolf sent Savery on an unusual commission to Tirol to study and document the Alpine countryside. This reflected the Emperor's growing interest in naturalistic observation and scientific documentation of the natural world. The sketches of mountains, birds, trees and waterfalls that Savery made during his time in the Alps would serve as reference material for later works throughout his career, including the present painting. Rudolf's menagerie at Prague Castle contained many exotic animals from distant lands, which Savery took the time to carefully study and sketch, developing an extraordinary ability to render birds, mammals, and reptiles with scientific accuracy and artistic sensitivity.

 

After Rudolf's death in 1612, Savery continued working for his successor, Emperor Matthias, until 1618, when he returned to Utrecht. There he quickly became one of the most important painters in the city, befriending many local artists such as Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert, both renowned for their detailed still life paintings. Despite his considerable success and reputation, Savery died in absolute poverty in Utrecht in 1639, perhaps due to alcoholism. [2]

 

Savery primarily painted landscapes in the Flemish tradition of Gillis van Coninxloo, characterized by dense forest settings and rocky terrain, which he embellished with many meticulously painted animals and plants, sometimes with a mythological or biblical theme as background. He also painted multiple flower still life paintings that were highly prized by collectors. His depictions of Paradise, populated with exotic fauna, were particularly sought after as they demonstrated both the artist's technical virtuosity and the patron's erudition regarding the natural world.

 

The present painting is a masterful example of Savery's mature style, combining his observational skills honed at the imperial court with his imaginative vision of an Edenic paradise. The composition depicts a lush, verdant landscape teeming with an extraordinary variety of bird species. In the foreground, several large birds command attention: ostriches with their distinctive long necks and robust bodies are rendered with careful attention to their plumage, while various species of waterfowl including geese occupy the lower portion of the composition. Brilliantly colored parrots, likely macaws or similar exotic species that Savery would have studied in Rudolf's menagerie, provide vivid accents of red, blue, and yellow throughout the scene. Smaller songbirds and wading birds populate the middle ground, each species identifiable through Savery's meticulous attention to anatomical detail and characteristic poses.

 

The landscape itself shows Savery's skill in creating atmospheric depth, with darker, densely wooded areas in the background giving way to lighter, more open spaces in the foreground where the birds congregate. Rocky outcroppings and gnarled tree trunks, reminiscent of his Tirol sketches, frame the composition and provide perches for various avian inhabitants. The foliage is rendered with botanical precision, each leaf and branch carefully delineated. A body of water, perhaps a pool or stream, reflects light and provides a habitat for the waterfowl, adding to the sense of an ideal, self-contained ecosystem.

 

This signed and dated work, created around 1624, represents the height of Savery's artistic powers. The painting evokes a prelapsarian moment in the Garden of Eden, where all creatures coexist in perfect harmony before the Fall of Man. Such depictions were immensely popular with collectors in the early seventeenth century, as they combined religious symbolism with scientific interest in natural history, and showcased the artist's ability to render the exotic and the familiar with equal skill. The work demonstrates Savery's unique synthesis of direct observation from life—drawing on his studies of Rudolf's menagerie and the Alpine landscape—with an idealized, paradisiacal vision that transcends mere naturalistic representation. The result is a painting that functions simultaneously as a celebration of God's creation, a demonstration of artistic virtuosity, and a testament to the international scope of early modern collecting and scientific inquiry.

 

 

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[1] On Rudolf II's court and Kunstkammer, see Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The School of Prague: Painting at the Court of Rudolf II, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988 and Eliška Fučíková et al., Rudolf II and Prague: The Court and the City, London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.

 

[2] For more on Savery’s life and work, see K.J. Müllenmeister, Roelant Savery, Die Gemälde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren, 1988.