A splendid Savery worth savoring for the Broelmuseum

Jacob Savery (c. 1565-1603), View of a City with a Bridge, 1585, Gouache on Parchment – 12 x 22 cm, Courtrai, Broelmuseum, Photo : Broelmuseum

This thoroughly delightful and captivating gouache by Jacob Savery has been acquired by the Broelmuseum, according to the Art Tribune. It appeared at Christies’s in New York January 26, 2011 (lot 267), with an estimate of $20,000-30,000, and sold for $21,500 including buyer’s premium to Kunsthandel P. DeBoer in Amsterdam. As the article notes, “When comparing the auction photograph [below] with the one provided by the Broelmuseum [above] it appears that the painting has been restored.”

Lot 267. Christie’s, Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings & Watercolors Part II 26 January 2011 New York, Rockefeller Plaza.
Jacob Savery I (Courtrai circa 1545-1602 Amsterdam), View of a town in a mountainous landscape, with a bridge in the foreground. Estimate: $20,000 – $30,000. This lot sold for $21,500 (including buyer’s premium).

There are very few known paintings by Jacob Savery but there is an obvious influence here by Hans Bolunder whom he studied in Antwerp and who produced many gouache miniatures between 1567 and 1592 representing minutely detailed landscapes and city views in green and blue tones. Later, Savery would be more marked by Bruegel. A brother of Roelandt Savery, Jacob Savery I, was active in Haarlem around 1587, when he became a member of the painter’s guild in that city then moved to Amsterdam in 1591 where he died in 1603.

The Broelmuseum has also acquired two engravings after drawings by Jacob Savery. The first is a large landscape with Saint John the Baptist, the second one represents David and Jonathan.

According to Christie’s lot notes:

This early work, which still bears the strong influence of Hans Bol, Savery’s master, can be compared to two others in bodycolor on vellum executed circa 1584-6: the Landscape with the story of Jephthah’s daughter [first image below] in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. A2117) and the Landscape with a city by the sea [second image below] in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (H.G. Franz, Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus, Graz, 1969, I, p. 295, II, figs. 467-68).

Landscape with the story of Jephthah’s daughter

Landscape with a city by the sea