The oak support consists of three planks with a horizontal grain and is bevelled on the left and right sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1595. The panel could have been ready for use by 1606, but a date in or after 1612 is more likely. The ground layer is probably whitish. The painting technique is difficult to judge due to the poor condition.

Poor. The convex support has instable joins. There are discoloured areas of retouching, and a strongly discoloured varnish. The paint surface is locally affected with small blisters, probably due to a problem in the ground layer.

? Commissioned by or for the Oudezijdshuiszittenhuis, Oude Kerk, Amsterdam; ? transferred with this institution to Leprozengracht, Amsterdam, 1655; first recorded in this institution in the 18th century;¹¹GAA, PA 349, Inventaris van de archieven tot 1808 van de colleges van regenten over het oudezijdshuiszittenhuis en over het nieuwezijdshuiszittenhuis en van 1808-70 van het college van regenten over de Huiszittendestadsarmen, inv. no. 6, Protocol van resolutiën 1781-89, p. 294: ‘No. 16 Een vierkant Kleiner als ’t voorigen Stuk geschildert door ... Verbeeldende Een Jagt. op paneel’. transferred with this institution to the Nieuwezijdshuiszittenhuis, Prinsengracht, Amsterdam, 1808; transferred with this institution to the Armenhuis, Roetersstraat, Amsterdam, 1873; on loan to the museum from the City of Amsterdam since 2 October 1885

Object number: SK-C-447

Credit line: On loan from the City of Amsterdam

This painting shows a compilation of hunting scenes that recur throughout Savery’s oeuvre. Erasmus had already pointed out that the boar hunt in the right foreground is the mirror image of the main subject in Savery’s Boar Hunt in the Museum Bredius in The Hague.²²Erasmus 1908, p. 61. The Museum Bredius painting is illustrated in Müllenmeister 1988, p. 236, no. 91. It is also found in other paintings, either as the main subject or as part of a larger composition.³³Müllenmeister 1988, p. 234, no. 85 (ill.), and reversed left for right: p. 229, no. 75A (ill.), pp. 236, 239, no. 91 (ill.), p. 239, no. 92, p. 237 (ill.), p. 239, no. 95, p. 105 (ill.), p. 240, no. 97A (ill.). The stag being attacked by hounds in the right middleground is the second hunting scene that is found in other paintings by Savery.⁴⁴Müllenmeister 1988, p. 234, no. 86 (ill.), and reversed left for right: p. 232, no. 82, p. 233 (ill.). Finally, the stag fleeing in the centre foreground and looking out at the viewer is another recurring element in his oeuvre.⁵⁵Müllenmeister 1988, p. 228, no. 75 (ill.), p. 229, no. 75A (ill.), pp. 234-35, nos. 85-87 (ill.).

On the evidence of the reversed composition in the Museum Bredius, Erasmus suggested that a print may have been made after that work, and that Savery used it as the model for part of the Rijksmuseum painting, but no such print is known.⁶⁶Erasmus 1908, p. 61. Blankert (in coll. cat. The Hague 1991a, p. 200) also considered this unlikely. What is clear is that Savery used existing models for the present work, since several paintings with identical hunting scenes predate it.⁷⁷Müllenmeister 1988, p. 237 (ill.), p. 239, no. 92 (dated 1611), p. 105 (ill.), p. 239, no. 95 (dated 1618).

Yvette Bruijnen, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 267.

Erasmus 1908, p. 61, no. 6; Müllenmeister 1988, p. 231, no. 78

1886, p. 72, no. 321a; 1887, p. 153, no. 1288; 1903, p. 239, no. 2135; 1934, p. 258, no. 2135; 1960, p. 278, no. 2135; 1976, p. 500, no. C 447; 2007, no. 267

Y. Bruijnen, 2007, 'Roelant Savery, Wild Boar Hunt in a Rocky Landscape, 1620', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026271