Roelant Savery's Wondrous World

softcover , 260 x 220 mm, 160 pages. ENG edition, illustrated in colours. ISBN 9789462625228. Roelant Savery (1578-1639) belonged to the large group of Flemish artists who ended up in the Northern Netherlands around 1600, during the 80 Years' War. There they stood at the cradle of the great flowering of art in the seventeenth century. Savery was a very versatile draftsman and painter, specialized in landscapes, animal pieces and floral still lifes. He depicted countless different species with encyclopedic precision: animals, flowers but also people from various regions, from Bohemian farmers to Jewish worshipers in the synagogue. Savery became the painter of the extinct dodo from Mauritius. For more than ten years, Savery worked in the service of the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, who sent him to document the landscapes and people of his empire. Originating from the Low Countries, the waterfalls in the Alps must have made a deep impression on the artist. After returning to the Netherlands, Roelant Savery settled in Utrecht, where he created a garden behind his house with precious flowers and plants. This way he did not have to leave home to find inspiration for his flower still lifes.