Object data
oil on copper
support: height 40.3 cm × width 49.2 cm
depth 6 cm
Roelant Savery (workshop of)
Elijah Fed by the Ravens (I Kings 17:2-6)
1634
Inscriptions
- signature and date, bottom right: Roeland / Savery FE 16[3?]4
Technical notes
The support is a copper plate. The colour of the ground layer could not be determined. The painting is smoothly executed with deftly placed white highlights, particularly in the sunlit trees and water. The rocky parts on the left and right foreground are rendered in a different, somewhat harsh style.
Scientific examination and reports
- technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 23 April 2002
Condition
Fair. Corrosion of the copper support gives the painted surface a speckled appearance and the varnish has discoloured.
Conservation
- L. Pommerantz, 1950: varnish regenerated; flaking paint consolidated and retouched
Provenance
...; sale, C.F. Berré (†), Leiden (C.F. Roos), 7 September 1885, no. 59, fl. 95, to the museum1
Object number: SK-A-1297
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Roelant Savery (Kortrijk c. 1578 - Utrecht 1639)
Roelant Savery was born in Kortrijk around 1578, going by the statements of his age in two attestations of 1618 and 1629. When the town fell to the Spanish in 1580 the family moved to Bruges, and then to Haarlem around 1585. According to Van Mander, Roelant was trained by his elder brother Jacob, who settled in Amsterdam in 1591. Roelant was living with him when the two brothers drew up their wills in 1602. After Jacob’s death in 1603, Roelant moved to Prague to work for Emperor Rudolf, and is first documented there in 1604. Between 1606 and 1608 he travelled to Tirol to make drawings of the landscapes there for the emperor. After Rudolf’s death in 1612, Savery carried on working for his successor, Matthias. In 1613 he was paid for a trip to Amsterdam, where in 1614 he made arrangements for the disposal of his brother’s estate after his widow’s death. He travelled back to Prague in 1615, but returned to Amsterdam in 1616 for the marriage of his nephew Salomon. The following year he is recorded as being a landscape painter in Amsterdam, and in 1618 he may have spent some time in Haarlem. He is also documented that same year in Utrecht, where he joined the Guild of St Luke in 1619. In 1621 he bought a house in Boterstraat that he shared with several members of his family, among them his nephew Hans II (1589-1664). It can be assumed that the latter, a landscape painter, who was also in Prague in 1615, was trained by his uncle, and that he worked closely with him, beginning in the 1620s. Roelant made another will in 1624 in which he left all his paintings and related drawings to Hans II.
Documents show that Roelant made good money with his brush. In 1626, the States of Utrecht paid 700 guilders for a painting that was presented to Amalia van Solms on the occasion of her marriage to Frederik Hendrik. In 1628 or 1629 he received 400 Reichsthalers for two paintings for the collection of the Elector of Liechtenstein. Nevertheless, he was declared bankrupt in 1638. Financially ruined and in a state of mental confusion in his closing years, he was buried in the Buurkerk in Utrecht on 23 February 1639.
Roelant Savery left a large oeuvre. From his early Amsterdam period came landscapes, animal, flower and genre pieces influenced by his brother Jacob, Hans Bol, Gillis van Coninxloo and Pieter Brueghel. In Prague he found himself in a very artistic milieu, and made countless drawings of such subjects as the landscape in the Tirol, peasants, and views of Prague. After his return to the Dutch Republic he concentrated mainly on such successful subjects as landscapes with exotic animals. His output became less balanced from the 1620s on as a result of his collaboration with Hans II. His followers included Gillis de Hondecoeter, Jacob Marel and Allaert van Everdingen.
Yvette Bruijnen, 2007
References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 260v; De Bie 1661, pp. 125-26; Von Sandrart 1675 (1925), pp. 132, 175-76, 242, 250; Campo Weyerman I, 1729, pp. 248-51; Erasmus 1908, pp. 3-13; Briels 1976, pp. 281-301; Spicer-Durham 1979, pp. 11-42; Dudok van Heel/Bok 1990; Bok in Amsterdam 1993, pp. 315-16; Briels 1997, pp. 377-79
Entry
As usual in Savery’s oeuvre, the subject, in this case the biblical story of Elijah fed by ravens, is subordinated to the landscape. According to Walford, it is the rays of sunlight that give the scene its religious nature,2 but such rays are frequently found in the artist’s non-religious works.3
The date, which is difficult to read, has hitherto been taken to be 1634, which is plausible. There is a difference in quality between various parts of the composition. The rocks on the left and right are rendered as piles of round and oval shapes, which is uncharacteristic of Savery and lacks conviction. The animals and the flowing water, on the other hand, are executed in his distinctive, refined manner. A possible explanation for these inconsistencies is that Savery worked on the picture with his nephew, Hans Savery II, or some other collaborator.
Yvette Bruijnen, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 269.
Literature
Erasmus 1908, p. 62, no. 8; Buysschaert in Cologne-Utrecht 1985, pp. 151-52, no. 68; Müllenmeister 1988, pp. 319-20, no. 252; Walford 1991, pp. 40, 99
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 153, no. 1289; 1903, p. 240, no. 2137; 1934, p. 258, no. 2137; 1960, p. 278, no. 2137; 1976, p. 500, no. A 1297 (as Savery); 2007, no. 269
Citation
Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'workshop of Roelant Savery, Elijah Fed by the Ravens (I Kings 17:2-6), 1634', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5386
(accessed 30 April 2024 10:59:48).