Roelant Savery

Peasants Dancing outside a Bohemian Inn

Roelant Savery
Peasants Dancing outside a Bohemian Inn

1610 On view in Room 4

Outside an inn, the festivities are in full swing. People are eating, drinking, dancing and smooching. There are revellers wherever you look: in the shade in the bottom left-hand corner, inside the inn, stretching far into the distance. The Flemish painter Roelant Savery painted these village festivities with a refined technique and in striking, vivid colours. Bursts of red clothing appear throughout the jubilant crowd.

Savery was following the example of his fellow countryman Pieter Brueghel the Elder with this depiction, yet the inn and landscape do not look particularly Flemish. Indeed, Savery produced this work during his time as court painter to Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. Van Dedem’s painting is an important addition to the collection of genre pieces in the Mauritshuis.

Technical details

Roelant Savery
Peasants Dancing outside a Bohemian Inn

1610 On view in Room 4

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Details

General information
Artist Roelant Savery (Courtrai 1576/1578 - 1639 Utrecht)
Title Peasants Dancing outside a Bohemian Inn
Dated 1610
Object name painting
Inventory number 1129
On view in Room 4
Material and technical details
Technique oil
Material panel
Dimensions 47 x 61 cm
Inscriptions
Signed and dated lower left, beneath the sitting man with the jug: R SAVERY FE / 16[..]

Provenance

G.H.G. Braams, Arnhem, before 1918; his sale, Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 24-26 September 1918, no. 195 (for 4,000 guilders to Jacobson for Houthakker); Houthakker Gallery, Amsterdam; Gottschewski Collection, Berlin, 1927; Enthoven Collection; sale Amsterdam (Frederik Muller), 25 October 1932, no. 19; P. de Boer Gallery, Amsterdam, 1934; W. Paech Gallery, Amsterdam, 1936; B. de Geus van den Heuvel, Nieuwersluis, until 1976; his sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby Mak van Waay), 26-27 April 1976, no. 59; Richard Green Gallery, London, and J. Kraus, 1977; purchased by Willem, Baron van Dedem, 21 May 1977; gift of Willem, Baron van Dedem to the Friends of the Mauritshuis Foundation, 2002; on loan to Willem, Baron van Dedem, and his widow, London, 2002-2016