554
to which paradise could be celebrated and reproduced on canvases, in parkland
settings and in zoological containment
3
(Figs. 59.1, 59.2, 59.3).
While the Emperor was obsessed with killing animals, hunting, as witnessed by
his many hunting grounds,
4
he also proffered a more affable affiliation with companion animals. His pets included tigers, and an apparently rambunctious lion
named Muhammed. Rudolf and his father Maximillian II before him, established
Europe’s first zoo, a “Deer Moat,” a “Lion Court,” with a public viewing gallery,
and “Royal Game Preserve” surrounding his Star (Hvêzda) summer palace.
5
Rudolf’s aggregate of wild animals was imported from all over the world, including
a cassowary at first believed to breathe fire, brought to him via Amsterdam. The
Dutch captain whose men managed to trap the bird suffered a revenge killing by the
bird en route from the Banda Islands of Indonesia. Rudolf’s big cats are said to have
roamed his castle at will, and taken the occasional lethal bites out of the odd
royal guests.
Those who survived received at least some reparation. It was a menagerie more
aggressive in its holdings, even, than those of Louis XIV’s animal “apartments” at
Versailles
6
—or of Archdukes Albert’s and Isabella’s menagerie in Brussels, where
Breughel the Elder would frequently visit for his painterly sittings with live
animals.
7
For nearly a decade as court painter, Savery, having arrived with his nephew/
assistant, Hans Savery II, produced an astonishing body of work at the castle,
particularly focused upon paradise images and an unprecedented array of life-like
animal portraitures, including several of the Dodo, arguably painted from life.
3 See “The Explorations of Emperor Rudolf II,” by Jeff Michael Hammond, The Japan Times/
Culture, a review of ”The Empire of Imagination and Science of Ruldolf II” at the Bunkamura
Museum of Art, www.bunkamura.co.jp/museum, January 23, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/
culture/2018/01/23/arts/explorations-emperor-rudolf-ii/#.Xp9yB9NKi-s, Accessed April 24,
2020. The review features Savery’s painting of “Orpheus Playing to the Animals,” (1625) from the
National Gallery in Prague, a painting that seems to sum up the artist’s own sense of passing time:
the castle has become a ruin, and the parliament of animals is missing one in particular, the Dodo,
whose living reality would appear to have been all but eclipsed. See also, “Federico Borromeo as
a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy ca. 1600,” by Pamela M. Jones,
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 70, No. 2, June, 1988, pp. 261–272, Published by CAA, DOI:
10.2307/3051119, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051119, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051119?
seq=1, Accessed June 18, 2020.
4 See The Saint Louis Art Museum, “Forest With Deer,” by Savery, 1608–1610, https://www.slam.
org/collection/objects/974/. Accessed April 25, 2020.
5 “First Zoo in Europe,” by Miroslav Bobek, March 30, 2015, https://www.zoopraha.cz/en/aboutzoo/news/director-s-view/9130-first-zoo-in-europe, Accessed April 24, 2020.
6 See Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West, by Eric Baratay and Elisabeth HardouinFugier, Reaktion Books, London 2004, p. 62, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/
distributed/Z/bo3535747.html, Accessed April 24, 2020.
7 See Oudry’s Painted Menagerie: Portraits of Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Europe,
edited by Mary Morton, Getty Publications, Los Angeles, 2007, p. 138. https://books.google.com/
books/about/Oudry_s_Painted_Menagerie.html?id=lxdHAgAAQBAJ.
59 Savery’s Castle of Secrets
to which paradise could be celebrated and reproduced on canvases, in parkland
settings and in zoological containment
3
(Figs. 59.1, 59.2, 59.3).
While the Emperor was obsessed with killing animals, hunting, as witnessed by
his many hunting grounds,
4
he also proffered a more affable affiliation with companion animals. His pets included tigers, and an apparently rambunctious lion
named Muhammed. Rudolf and his father Maximillian II before him, established
Europe’s first zoo, a “Deer Moat,” a “Lion Court,” with a public viewing gallery,
and “Royal Game Preserve” surrounding his Star (Hvêzda) summer palace.
5
Rudolf’s aggregate of wild animals was imported from all over the world, including
a cassowary at first believed to breathe fire, brought to him via Amsterdam. The
Dutch captain whose men managed to trap the bird suffered a revenge killing by the
bird en route from the Banda Islands of Indonesia. Rudolf’s big cats are said to have
roamed his castle at will, and taken the occasional lethal bites out of the odd
royal guests.
Those who survived received at least some reparation. It was a menagerie more
aggressive in its holdings, even, than those of Louis XIV’s animal “apartments” at
Versailles
6
—or of Archdukes Albert’s and Isabella’s menagerie in Brussels, where
Breughel the Elder would frequently visit for his painterly sittings with live
animals.
7
For nearly a decade as court painter, Savery, having arrived with his nephew/
assistant, Hans Savery II, produced an astonishing body of work at the castle,
particularly focused upon paradise images and an unprecedented array of life-like
animal portraitures, including several of the Dodo, arguably painted from life.
3 See “The Explorations of Emperor Rudolf II,” by Jeff Michael Hammond, The Japan Times/
Culture, a review of ”The Empire of Imagination and Science of Ruldolf II” at the Bunkamura
Museum of Art, www.bunkamura.co.jp/museum, January 23, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/
culture/2018/01/23/arts/explorations-emperor-rudolf-ii/#.Xp9yB9NKi-s, Accessed April 24,
2020. The review features Savery’s painting of “Orpheus Playing to the Animals,” (1625) from the
National Gallery in Prague, a painting that seems to sum up the artist’s own sense of passing time:
the castle has become a ruin, and the parliament of animals is missing one in particular, the Dodo,
whose living reality would appear to have been all but eclipsed. See also, “Federico Borromeo as
a Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian Optimism in Italy ca. 1600,” by Pamela M. Jones,
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 70, No. 2, June, 1988, pp. 261–272, Published by CAA, DOI:
10.2307/3051119, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051119, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051119?
seq=1, Accessed June 18, 2020.
4 See The Saint Louis Art Museum, “Forest With Deer,” by Savery, 1608–1610, https://www.slam.
org/collection/objects/974/. Accessed April 25, 2020.
5 “First Zoo in Europe,” by Miroslav Bobek, March 30, 2015, https://www.zoopraha.cz/en/aboutzoo/news/director-s-view/9130-first-zoo-in-europe, Accessed April 24, 2020.
6 See Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West, by Eric Baratay and Elisabeth HardouinFugier, Reaktion Books, London 2004, p. 62, https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/
distributed/Z/bo3535747.html, Accessed April 24, 2020.
7 See Oudry’s Painted Menagerie: Portraits of Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Europe,
edited by Mary Morton, Getty Publications, Los Angeles, 2007, p. 138. https://books.google.com/
books/about/Oudry_s_Painted_Menagerie.html?id=lxdHAgAAQBAJ.
59 Savery’s Castle of Secrets