Landscape with Birds

It was Emperor Rudolf II who employed this original artist. The painter moved from the Low Countries to Prague, where he stayed until 1612, then he settled in Amsterdam, and finally, in Utrecht. This National Gallery in Prague work was created by Savery in 1622, when he lived in Utrecht, even though he drew on his Prague sojourn in painting it. Rudolf II in fact reared exotic birds in large aviaries in Prague, and this is why the painter had a rare chance to see various representatives of the birds‘ realm with his own eyes. In his composition, he made use of both the birds common to Europe and of those highly exotic. One of the rarest birds at the time was the double-wattled cassowary, which Rudolf II acquired from the remote Java in 1601. From the zoological viewpoint, Savery painted this bird very accurately, as seen in the painting on the right. Unlike that, the king of birds, eagle, which dominates all the assembly, is captured in a rigid, rather unrealistic position which proves that Savery improvised in this case.