“Before the Deluge” by Roelant Savery

The Flemish painter Roelant Savery, who lived at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, developed his own style, the leitmotif of which were landscapes. One of the special features of this group of the artist’s works was the depiction of exotic plants and animals in unnatural density. This means that these paintings were full of specimens of fauna and flora, grouped in the foreground as if – speaking today – they were posing together for a photograph. The artist could get to know the appearance of some creatures that did not occur in Europe thanks to visits to the Prague menagerie, which he visited as a court painter of Emperors Rudolf II Habsburg and then his brother, Matthias Habsburg, residing at Prague Castle.

The oil painting on oak panel, measuring about 82 x 137 cm, shown in the tutyl photograph, painted by Savery probably in his studio in Utrecht in 1620 and entitled – as I suppose by later owners of the work – “Before the Deluge” (German: Vor der Sintflut [1]), is an example of just such a representation of the commonly known story, described in chapters six to eight of the biblical Book of Genesis [2]. Noah’s ark, visible in the centre of the painting, was stylized by the artist as a flute [3] (flam. Fluitschip), an ocean-going ship characteristic of the country and the times in which the painter lived.

Roelant Savery also painted several other paintings with the motif of animals gathering around the ark, which are now on display in the

• Museum of Fine Arts in Reims, France [4] (Musée des Beaux-Arts à Reims),
• Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in Auckland, New Zealand [5] and
• National Museum in Warsaw [6].

Although Roelant Savery allowed himself to be very imaginative, especially in the field of depicting the actual appearance of the ark, without taking into account the shape or proportions of the ship described in the Bible, it is worth emphasizing the interest he undoubtedly had in the story of the biblical flood and the work he put into the creation of the above-mentioned eye-pleasing paintings.

The article is a semi-machine translation of the original in Polish.

External links

1. [↑] Oil painting Vor der Sintflut.
2. [↑] Modern Translation: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Genesis 6, 7, 8.
3. [↑] Wenzel Hollar’s etching Fleuten 1647 depicting Dutch flutes.
4. [↑] Oil painting Noé remerciant Dieu d’avoir sauvé la Création.
5. [↑] Oil painting Noah’s Ark.
6. [↑] Oil painting Noah’s Ark.

Cover photo taken in January 2023 at the Old Masters Picture Gallery (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) in the Dresden Zwinger, published courtesy of the press department of the Dresden State Art Collection (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden).