Lot 1150 Dα

Even in antiquity, Orpheus playing music among the animals was a popular motif, and it experienced a renewed surge of popularity in the Flemish art of the late 16th and early 17th century. It offered artist's the chance to display their prowess in depicting a large variety of native and exotic animals. Many of the latter were presumably only known to the artists through contemporary engraved publications, as shown by the rhinoceros on the left edge of the image which is obviously based on Dürer's famous woodcut of such a beast from 1515.
Fred Meijer of the RKD (The Hague) attributed the work to Jacob Savery II in a letter to the previous owner. This painter was a member of an originally Flemish family of artists who were forced to flee to the northern Netherlands in 1580 due to religious persecution. Both his father Jacob Savery I and his younger brother Roelandt Savery were already famous for their brilliant depictions of animals, and the son Jacob Savery II continued this family tradition.