This painting draws upon Savery’s familiarity with the menagerie of Rudolf II in Prague, though it was executed after his return to the northern Netherlands, where it must have been acquired by a member of the family of the Elector Palatine, who from 1622 was living in exile in The Hague. Even more than his Landscape with Birds (Royal Collection) this scene represents hostile nature, the ‘forests of the night’, where savage beasts lurk in the shadows and seem almost to embody the fear of darkness.

There is perhaps a religious overtone to this scene; we are in a dark cave (the top of which is clearly visible on both sides) surrounded by lions and looking out into the light. Like Rubens’s contemporary depiction of Daniel in the lions’ den (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC), this would surely have reminded even a Protestant viewer of the words of the Offertorium of the requiem mass: ‘Jesus Christ, Master, King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful dead from the pains of hell and the deep abyss; delivery them from the mouth of the lion, that the pit may not swallow them and that they may not fall into darkness, but may St Michael, the standard-bearer, bring them back into the holy light.’ In this context the brightly lit hill surmounted by trees is suggestive of Calvary (the hill where Christ was crucified between two thieves), from which all hope of salvation comes.

Catalogue entry adapted from Bruegel to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting, London, 2007