SAVERY, Dutch family of artists of Flemish birth
As Anabaptists, the brothers Hans Savery I (1564-after 1622), Jacob Savery I and Roelandt Savery would have been forced by Spanish persecution to leave their native Flanders c. 1580. By c. 1585 they had apparently settled in Haarlem, where Hans I became active as a marine painter and where in 1587 Jacob joined the Guild of St Luke. In 1591 Jacob became a citizen of Amsterdam, remaining there until his death from the plague. Consistent with Calvin's recommendations on the appropriate subject-matter for artists, Jacob depicted landscapes, low-life genre scenes, animals and flowers. His work exemplifies the tension characteristic of the years around 1600 between the strict adherence to past conventions and the curiosity implicit in the emerging new style of naturalism. Roelandt Savery primarily painted landscapes in the Flemish tradition of Gillis van Coninxloo, often embellished with many meticulously painted animals and plants, regularly with a mythological or biblical theme as background.
