From Mantua to Moravia, from the forests of Tyrol to the dams and dykes of the Netherlands, a key theme of 10th November’s OId Master’s sale at Dorotheum is the artistic wanderings of Flanders’s great masters.

The sale will include a raucous depiction of rustic life, as enjoyed by the subjects of Emperor Rudolf II -shown in an expansive canvas by Roelant Savery, the Prague-based ruler’s court painter. Although trained in Antwerp, few painters could come close to Savery for such dramatic depictions of the rolling vistas, wind-blown foliage and contented Bohemian peasants making merry that so tickled the Habsburg taste. (estimate €100,000 – 150,000).

An equally vivid and lively scene, but one set in an Arcadian, sun-drenched fantasy land where gods still walk the earth, is the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, by Hendrick van Balen. Van Balen, like his pupil van Dyck after him, absorbed the golden light and antique depictions of bacchanals that could be found in Rome. But he also complimented this with a remarkably Flemish eye for detail in the still-lifes of the lobsters, gilded vessels and putti-carried melons of the sumptuous banquet shown. The sense of a mischief-making goddess is suggested by a malignant light hovering behind the clouds above, while gently swaying trees add to the sense of dramatic tension. (estimate €100,000 – 150,000).

Finally, a newly confirmed addition to the oeuvre of Peter Paul Rubens, arguably the greatest and most well-travelled of Flemish artists, The Holy Family with Saint Anne, Saint John and a dove, is one of the first works painted by the master and his Antwerp workshop following his return from Rome. The work is a showpiece of Rubens’s vibrant painting technique, with bold colours, plucked feathers, brilliant musculature, and compositional ingenuity. It shows Rubens working out elements of the picture directly on the panel, along with a high degree of iconographic sophistication. As court painter to the Duke of Mantua, and emissary to the Spanish court at Valladolid, Rubens imbibed the genius of the Italian masters of the renaissance, before returning triumphantly to transform the art scene of the Low Countries. (estimate €350,000 – 500,000)

OLD MASTER PAINTINGS
* Live auction with Live Bidding
Old Master Paintings I * 10th November 2021, 4 pm
Old Master Paintings II online-auction 11th November 2021, 3 pm
Venue/Viewing Palais Dorotheum, Dorotheergasse 17, 1010 Vienna
Press Doris Krumpl, Tel. +43-1-515 60-405, doris.krumpl@dorotheum.at