(Courtrai 1576–1639 Utrecht)
An ore-washing plant in the mountains,
oil on canvas, 69 x 99.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Bonhams, London, 4 December 1975;
Private collection, Switzerland;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 30 March 2000, lot 88;
where acquired by the present owners

Literature:
K. J. Muellenmeister, Roelant Savery, Die Gemaelde mit kritischem Oeuvrekatalog, Freren 1988, p. 222, no. 61 (entitled Erzwaschanlage II)

The present canvas by Roelant Savery is a remarkable early artistic testament to rural, mountain life and industry in Bohemia in the 1600s. The composition is closely related to a version on copper (35 x 49 cm), dated 1608 conserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, (inv. no. G.1083). Although entitled Travellers in a Mountainous Landscape, the acutely observed rocky vista, verdant foliage and rushing water of the stream, actually provide the setting for the composition to capture, in vivid oils, perhaps for the first time in the history of western art, a sluice set up to wash iron-ore. Indeed K. J Muellenmeister in his monograph on the artist subtitles both this and the Vienna version as Erzwaschanlage. 

Savery appears to have composed the present work after studies he made ad vivum likely after visiting the ore mines at Gossensaß in Tyrol and Joachimstal in Bohemia, during the first years of his tenure as court painter at Prague to Emperor Rudolf II. Works such as Agricola’s De Re Metallica 1556, would have been in the Imperial library, and while Rudolf had a keen interest in documenting the flora, fauna, and topography of his realms, the Emperor paid especially close attention to the mineral source of wealth in his lands, even dabbling in alchemy. The high viewpoint, modelling of the blues and greys of the horizon with the sun breaking through cloudy skies, and the birds and playful dogs enlivening the picture are typical of Flemish landscape painting, exhibiting Savery’s initial artistic training in Antwerp.