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Lot Essay
This signed winter landscape on copper is a rare surviving work by the Flemish émigré, Jacob Savery, who preserved and spread the artistic vision of Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Northern Netherlands, prompting a new phase of landscape and genre painting in that region.
Jacob, the elder brother of Roelandt Savery, trained in Antwerp under Bruegel’s contemporary Hans Bol (1534-1593), with his earliest known works, dating from 1584-86, comprising of small, finely detailed landscapes in gouache that were unmistakably indebted to his teacher. After fleeing the political and religious unrest of the Southern Netherlands, Jacob travelled north with his younger brother, settling in Amsterdam by 1591. It is here that Hans Bol’s influence became superseded by that of Bruegel the Elder, as is evident in Jacob’s etchings of idealised rural scenes, which are executed in the same stipple technique of Bruegel’s Rabbit Hunters of 1560, as well as in his landscapes in gouache.
In this painting, Jacob has adopted the raised, panoramic viewpoint popularised by his esteemed Flemish predecessors, with the sophisticated articulation of space and attention to figural detail recalling Bruegel’s The Return of the Herd, representing the months of October and November, and The Hunters in the Snow, depicting December and January (both 1565; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). The landscape is given prominence, while the figures and animals are restricted to secondary status, again echoing Bruegel’s treatment in The Return of the Herd (fig. 1).
As with Bruegel’s paintings of The Series of the Months (1565), Savery’s portrayal of Winter was once paired with a companion of Summer (of the same dimensions and on copper; both previously in the collection of Cornelia, Countess of Craven, the latter sold at the sale of 1984, lot 77). Such artistic representation of the Months was derived from the medieval manuscript tradition, in particular from Books of Hours, which introduced a calendar listing of the relevant liturgical feasts for each month, illustrated by images depicting the various activities or labours associated with that time of year.
Jacob, the elder brother of Roelandt Savery, trained in Antwerp under Bruegel’s contemporary Hans Bol (1534-1593), with his earliest known works, dating from 1584-86, comprising of small, finely detailed landscapes in gouache that were unmistakably indebted to his teacher. After fleeing the political and religious unrest of the Southern Netherlands, Jacob travelled north with his younger brother, settling in Amsterdam by 1591. It is here that Hans Bol’s influence became superseded by that of Bruegel the Elder, as is evident in Jacob’s etchings of idealised rural scenes, which are executed in the same stipple technique of Bruegel’s Rabbit Hunters of 1560, as well as in his landscapes in gouache.
In this painting, Jacob has adopted the raised, panoramic viewpoint popularised by his esteemed Flemish predecessors, with the sophisticated articulation of space and attention to figural detail recalling Bruegel’s The Return of the Herd, representing the months of October and November, and The Hunters in the Snow, depicting December and January (both 1565; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). The landscape is given prominence, while the figures and animals are restricted to secondary status, again echoing Bruegel’s treatment in The Return of the Herd (fig. 1).
As with Bruegel’s paintings of The Series of the Months (1565), Savery’s portrayal of Winter was once paired with a companion of Summer (of the same dimensions and on copper; both previously in the collection of Cornelia, Countess of Craven, the latter sold at the sale of 1984, lot 77). Such artistic representation of the Months was derived from the medieval manuscript tradition, in particular from Books of Hours, which introduced a calendar listing of the relevant liturgical feasts for each month, illustrated by images depicting the various activities or labours associated with that time of year.