Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Full-Grown Wolves of 3-4 Years have 8-9 Whelps and live up to 20 Years. Five howling wolves amidst an especially fine rocky scenery. Etching + engraving. (1736.) Inscribed: Cum Priv. Sac. Caes. Majest. / I. El. Ridinger invent. delin. Sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise in German/French/Latin as before. 34.5 x 42 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 216. – Sheet 21 of the “View of the Wild Animals along with the Excellent Poetry of the Most Famous Mr. Barthold Heinrich Brockes” as rich subtext in German. – Warm-toned impression with typographic and small figurative watermarks. – The especially wide margins a little time-marked.
Offer no. 28,091 / EUR  660. / export price EUR  627. (c. US$ 873.) + shipping

– The same as not used postcard in rotogravure after Ridinger for Felsing, Berlin. C. 1900-20.
Offer no. 28,466 / EUR  29. (c. US$ 40.) + shipping

Wintter, Joseph Georg (1751 Munich 1789). The Stag of Odd 20 Points attacked by Wolves. In mountainous winter landscape with lattice and a farm set back one of the two wolves grasped the stag at the throat while the half covered other one operates from the back. Etching. Sheet size 11.8 x 15.9 cm.

Niemeyer 127. – Not related to one of the sets if not belonging to Niem. 21-24, stags + boars attacked by hounds. – Also not entered into the comprehensive 44-sheet Augsburg edition on buff paper Schwerdt III, 190, a ( “Rare” ) of earliest 1821. The wonderful quality of its impressions discloses the small editions and caused Schwerdt, not knowing the chronological factor, to assume proofs before the letter in many cases. But already on occasion of the here not otherwise proven 137-sheet edition Weigel 21336 stated in 1857: “Most sheets very rare”.

Wintter’s “etchings are fine and stand in their execution between those by Hollar and Riedinger. In 1784 W. became electoral Court and Hunting Engraver” (Nagler in vol. III, no. 68, of his Dictionary of Monogramists of 1863 and on his part additionally referring to the rarity of these fine plates). – Impression of rich contrast on firm laid paper. – Below trimmed to platemark, otherwise hard by image mark.
Offer no. 14,113 / EUR  190. (c. US$ 264.) + shipping

Wolves in Mist. By moon just coming through two of them before a farm only visible ghostly. Wood engraving by Jules Huyot (Toulouse 1841 – Paris after 1882) after Ernest Bellecroix (active 1863-1877? in France). Ca. 1870. Inscribed: Er. Bellecroix / Huyot., otherwise in German as above. 14.8 x 21.8 cm. – Impression of 1873. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 11,221 / EUR  65. (c. US$ 90.) + shipping

Tempesta, Antonio (Florence 1555 – Rome 1630). Hunting the Wolf. In front left with the gun with depiction of the use of the ramrod, too, besides an already killed one. In the centre two follow the carrion of a sheep dragged by a horseman, observed by a huntsman sitting in a tree. Set back another one catched in the trap shall be slain, alternatively killed with the pike. Etching by Egbert Jansz (end of 16^th century)? 10.5 x 14 cm.

From the collection EK (not in Lugt) with its round stamp on the back, nearly identical with the mark CK (L. 583) of the Carl König Collection, Vienna, known for paintings, drawings, and objects d’art. – No. 12 of the 18-sheet collection with repeated numbers by a contemporary, presumably Netherlandish copyist available here with provenance EK on uniformly fine, wide-margined laid paper, partly with watermark Amsterdam coat-of-arms flanked on one side by lion. Below overwhelmingly with wide white platemark with just the number at the right, what points to

early  impressions  before  the  letter .

The more so as in the few cases of only narrow margin the number appears directly in the image itself.

Highly  instructive  and  also  picturesque  sheet

worked after one of the numerous Tempesta sets, e.g. the equal-sized Primo libro di Caccie varie (“This set was nicely copied, too”, Nagler), the collector’s reference to the first/second of the totally four Christoffel van Sichems (ca. 1546-1624 and ca. 1581 – before 1658 resp.) under providential inclusion of the contemporary Karel, too, seems not plausible based on the knowledge of their work here. More interesting in this regard should be Egbert Jansz, little known in his living conditions, of whom de Brys in Frankfort/Main published a collection “Icones Venantum Species Varias … per Antonium Tempestinum” in 1598 which Schwerdt I, 266 lists with 11 sheets, Thieme-Becker with 12 and Wurzbach with only 6 sheets. Not impossible that there are even more. These with 12 x 17 cm somewhat larger, however, and without numbering. Otherwise Schwerdt: Egbert Jansz was perhaps the best of those engravers who reproduced these and similar hunting scenes by Tempesta.
Offer no. 28,558 / EUR  135. (c. US$ 188.) + shipping

– – – The same , here next to a flock of sheep before a building by use of sword and pikes, the pursuit by horse, and the driving into nets. In the large group in front the attacked wolf charges the horse. Quite in the back a village with steeple. Etching as before. 10.8 x 14 cm. – Sheet 9. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 28,559 / EUR  125. (c. US$ 174.) + shipping

– – Wolf Pack among the Cattle, Goats, and Sheep of an Alp next to a property in front of which two shepherds with dog do not take any note of all that. Etching as before. 9.3 x 14.7 cm. – Sheet 10. – With watermark Amsterdam Coat-of-Arms with Lion. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 28,560 / EUR  99. (c. US$ 138.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Wolf in the Blow-Iron. The iron mounted on a chain strangling the neck. Etching + engraving. (1750.) Inscribed: Joh. El. Ridinger inv. del. sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise in German as before. 24.9 x 36.4 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 85; Schwerdt III, 135, 17 (“A rare set, of importance to those who are interested in the various methods of trapping wild animals”). – Sheet 17 of the 30-sheet set “Ways to catch the Wild Animals”, regarded by Halle in Munich in 1928 as the “Rarest of all hunting sets by Ridinger” (LXVIII/323). – Instructive 6-line subtext. – Rich in contrast. – Repairs in the left margin and below left partly touching also still the white platemark.
Offer no. 28,010 / EUR  445. / export price EUR  423. (c. US$ 589.) + shipping

Isengrim. In front of wintry wood looking at the beholder. Wood engraving by Jules Huyot (Toulouse 1841 – after 1882) after Jules Gélibert (Bagnères-de-Bigorre/Hautes-Pyrénées 1834 – Capbreton/Landes 1916). Ca. 1870. Inscribed: Jhuyot. / Jules Gélibert, otherwise in German as above. 14.8 x 21.8 cm.
Offer no. 11,220 / EUR  65. (c. US$ 90.) + shipping

Alpine Herdsman’s Dogs Fighting with a Wolf. The wolf is already seized at the throat, from the chalet the herdsman comes along with his gun. Toned wood engraving after August Specht (Lauffen on the Neckar 1849 – Stuttgart 1923) for Adolf Closs, Stgt. (1875/76.) 27.3 x 20.3 cm.
Offer no. 9,549 / EUR  84. (c. US$ 117.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Wolf to Catch in the Pit with the Sheep. Against the scenery of a mountainous landscape with stock of trees the wolf trap. Erected in its midst a pole with a wheel on top on which a lamb lies whose bleating baited four wolves, the first one already falling into the pit. Pen and brown ink with grey wash. Ca. 1729. Inscribed in graphite on the back: Der Wolf in der Grube zu fangen mit dem Schafe. 292-295 x 422-423 mm.

Ills. erlebnis ridinger 1698-1998 p. 17. – On light hand-made paper with margins up to 17 mm. Pinhead-like hole, smoothed folds athwart and along resp., and of the minimal mould stains on the back only one visible on the recto. By and large somewhat time-marked, but practically not impairing the fine general impression.

Pictorial  absolutely  completely  executed  wonderful  work

as original drawing before  being re-drawn in reverse for the transfer on the plate for the equally named etching Thienemann 41 as the large version of the two wolf pit sheets for the set “Princely Hunting Pleasures” published since 1729 and in such complete execution in connection to a print

belonging  to  the  greatest  rarities  in  Ridinger’s  work  today .

See the complete description.
Offer no. 14,976  /  price on request

Thoman(n) von Hagelstein, Ernst Philipp (1657 Augsburg 1726). Didactic Pieces of Hunting. Set of 4 sheet. Mezzotints printed in brown. Sheet 1 inscribed: E. P. Thoman. excudit. 35.2 x 49.7 cm (sheets 1-3) subject size 34.3-35 x 49-49.4 cm.

Schwerdt III, 171, a (Baillie-Grohman’s copy; “A complete and interesting set”). – For fitting into an album three sides trimmed to platemark (only sheet 4 with fine margin) and below under loss of the German quatrains + numbering (Schwerdt: N.1–N.4), mounted by old on laid paper and lined in brown ink. In the white upper margin old inventory inscription (Nro 1, 7, 8, 6/Tom: X/Fol 88, 94, 95, 93), also in brown ink. – Smoothened centre fold.

(here only the Schwerdt-Baillie-Grohman copy proven) in the fine impressions of a comprehensive old collection, richly nuanced in its chiaroscuro and, as all mezzotints by Ernst Philipp – “one of the best artists of his time”, Nagler – , even in single sheets, as here in more than 45 years also not been present, extraordinarily rare. So then only one further sheet among the about 27,600 of parts I-XXVIII of Weigel’s Art Stock Catalogue (1838/57; per 6,211 the portrait Rauner as also single one sheet known to Nagler + per 19,715 “Marten, Robbing a Dove’s Nest” by the son Tobias Heinrich).

Wolf  Hunt

In the foreground three wolves at the pegged billy-goat shielded by two huntsmen as bait, one of them already shot; in the centre a carrion dragged by a horseman with also two wolves greeted by three huntsmen; in the background near a property the hunt by a pack and hands, the latter armed with pike, flail, and net. – Laterally right quite slightly rubbed and hair-like tiny fold.

Further fox hunt , hare hunt, and badger and hedgehog hunt.

Beyond the individual-specific rarity above of together general scarceness as result of the mezzotint technique itself. Already in 1675 the expert von Sandrart numbered “clean prints” of the velvety mezzotint manner at only c. “50 or 60” (!). “Soon after (the picture) grinds off for it not goes deeply into the copper.” Correspondingly in 1856 Thienemann referring to Ridinger :

“ The  mezzotints  are  almost  not  to  be  acquired
on  the  market  anymore … and  the  by  far  larger  part  (of  them)  …
(I  have)  only  found  (in  the  printroom)  at  Dresden. ”

See the complete description.
Offer no. 28,415  /  price on request

Wolf  Hunt  under  Le  Roi  Soleil

Meulen, Adam Frans van der (Brussels 1632 – Paris 1690). La Chasse. The hunt on wolf and stag in deeply staggered woodlandscape reaches its climax. Pack as horsemen catched up with the game. In front the wolf, deeper in the scene the stag. Etching by Andries Frans Bauduins (Dixmuijde 1640 – Paris 1700). 32 x 45.8 cm.

Nagler, Monogrammisten, I, 562. – Small brown spot in the right image margin scarcely perceptible from recto. The wide white margins here and there quite weakly browned and waterstained.

The  whole  excitement  +  suspense  of  the  moment  is  conveyed  in  this  leaf

with royal privilege on heavy laid paper with watermark Great crowned Double Eagle, similar to BriquetBriquet 942, and white margins up to 9 cm wide. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 14,411 / EUR  1175. / export price EUR  1116. (c. US$ 1553.) + shipping

Into  always , out  nevermore

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The entrance of a Wolf Park. In moonlit thick forest place surrounded by high palisades with the wolf at the dead sheep, fuming with venom at the second one halting at the leap-off point. Etching + engraving. (1729.) Inscribed: Avec privil de Sa. Maj. Imp. / I. El. Ridinger inv. pinxit Sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise as above along with multiline subtext in German & French. 34.4 x 42.8 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 40; Weitz, (Of the History of Hunting at the Vogelsberg), Museum Hunting Seat Kranichstein, 2006, full-page ills. p. 11.

28 of the Princely Hunting Pleasure as the first hunting set transferred into copper by Ridinger himself and additionally published by himself, conceived textbook-like, in a marvelous impression of also most finely wide margins: 3.5-6 cm above + below, 8.5-9.5 cm laterally, besides in the outer part, particularly below and right slightly fox-spotted. Isolated tiniest tears in the lower margin backed acid-freely.

“ It has this with the entrance of the boar park (sheet 20 of the set) nearly complete conformity … if he recognizes his arrest, he begins after consumed prey and to his custom to howl heart-rendingly through which means one can perceive his arrest especially at night, catch the one alive or bring him within shot with great pleasure, this invention is very good to catch many together, sporting words of him are partly these … and the like more. ”

Offer no. 15,017 / EUR  970. / export price EUR  921. (c. US$ 1282.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Ostrich + Casuar on an elevated viewpoint of a sovereign landscape defending themselves against  three  wolves  (recte surely jackals as equally positioned in the tales as the foxes of the Bible, Th., declared as foxes also by Weigel, see below) + lynxes resp. of which one of the latter has been finished. 2 sheets . Etchings with engraving by Martin Elias Ridinger (1730 Augsburg 1780). Inscribed: XXVI./XXVII. / Joh. El. Ridinger inv. et del. / Mart. El. Ridinger, sculps. A.V. + 6-liner subtext. 30 x 24.7-24.9 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 369/70. – The pair XXVI/XXVII – “if the numbers are missing later impressions will be by all known odds”, Th. – of the extreme rare 46-sheet set “Special Events and Incidents at the Hunt” ( “The rarest set of Ridinger’s sporting line engravings”, Schwerdt III, 140; 1928 ) worked by Martin Elias after fatherly drawings – here such of 1764, see nos. 396+395 of the Ridinger appendix inside the 1869 Weigel catalogue of the left drawings – and completed posthumously in 1779.

“Arranged almost throughout in such a way that always two by two harmonize with each other as they had been sold also in pairs.” – In each case one sheet was missing in the Schwerdt copy and in Baron Gutmann’s (Schwarz) second (?) copy inside the Pompadour volumes sold here of his spectacular Marjoribanks Folios. With his 1554-nos. Ridinger offer (cat. XXXIV) of 1900 Helbing could offer only 43 sheets and even 13 sheets were missing in the Coppenrath collection when it was sold in 1889/90. And the famous voluminous Ridinger collection of the counts of Faber-Castell had only three (!) when it was sold in 1958.

Of quite especially rarity the Casuar-ostrich, Th. 370, of the pair offered here valued by Helbing in 1900 as additionally “very rare” with the same prize as the separate pair of the Wild Ducks Hard-Pressed by Wild Cats and Foxes, Th. 389/90 missing also Faber-Castell, but in stock here per 13,006. – With typographic watermark. – With 1.4/2.3-3.4 cm margins for the sides and 5-6 cm above and below. Here as also in the white text field a little dusty and a few weak small spots. Sheet 2 with a fold strip on the left side of the back.
Offer no. 14,123 / EUR  1380. / export price EUR  1311. (c. US$ 1825.) + shipping

Loups au Carnage, Les. Wolves attacking a herd of sheep and goats in hilly landscape. Toned wood engraving by Jules Huyot (Toulouse 1841 – Paris after 1882) after Jules Gélibert (Bagnères-de-Bigorre/Hautes-Pyrénées 1834 – Capbreton/Landes 1916). C. 1870. 22 x 32 cm.

Thieme-Becker XIII, 365; AKL LI, 198 f.: “(Gélibert produces) almost exclusively realistic animal and hunting depictions which concentrate on the chief subject”.
Offer no. 6,149 / EUR  118. (c. US$ 164.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). A roaming Wolf. In a rocky landscape. Etching + engraving. (1740.) Inscribed: J. E. Ridinger inv. fec. et exc. A. V. / N. 68., otherwise in German as before. 18.5 x 14.5 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 458. – Plate 68 of the instructive set Design of Several Animals (“These plates are much wanted”, Thienemann 1856). – Large figurative watermark. – Wonderful wide-margined impression of the 1^st edition.
Offer no. 7,314 / EUR  175. (c. US$ 244.) + shipping

– – – The Wolf. Standing to the right on wooded rocky cliff. Below the explained large traces on soft and solid ground with specification of claws and pad. Toned lithograph by Hermann Menzler printed by A. Renaud for L. J. Heymann in Berlin. (1863-65.) Inscribed: Gez. v. J. E. Ridinger, lith. v. H. Menzler etc., otherwise in German as before. 35 x 23.1 cm.

Sheet I, 16 of Menzler’s 80-sheet set Joh. El. Ridinger’s Hunting Album, in which he presents the copies – here plate 8 of the Fair Game, Thienemann 170 – partly freely or compressed to their principal motif, resulting in a first degree enrichment of collections. – In the pictorial effect the works correspond to the manner of aquatint not used by Ridinger anymore. – On strong, wide-margined paper and except for a bruise below the image reaching to the subtext of impeccable freshness.
Offer no. 28,434 / EUR  345. / export price EUR  328. (c. US$ 457.) + shipping

– – – (The Wolf.) In dense forest pressed by nine hounds one of them finished. Etching + engraving. (1761.) Inscribed: J. E. Ridinger inv. del. sc. et exc. A. V. 28.7 x 25 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 145. – Sheet 7 of “The Fair Game hounded by Several Kinds of the Hounds”. – With instructive and detailed subtext giving especially the different races suitable to that. – Silver-toned impression watermarked with cut “Thurneisen” mark as located at Basel and preferably used by Engelbrecht/Herzberg at Augsburg for their editions about 1824. – With wide margins of 5-7.5 cm above and below and 2.3-5 cm for the sides resp.
Offer no. 28,116 / EUR  483. / export price EUR  459. (c. US$ 639.) + shipping

– – – A Wolf Hunt. Bursting out of the mountain forest and hunted and framed by nine hounds. Toned lithograph by Hermann Menzler printed by A. Renaud for L. J. Heymann in Berlin. (1863-65.) Inscribed: Gez. v. J. E. Ridinger, lith. v. H. Menzler etc., otherwise in German as before. 33.2 x 22.9 cm.

(Joh. El. Ridinger’s Hunting Album) II/17. – Comp. sheet 7 of the Fair Game Hounded by the Different Kinds of Hounds, Thienemann 144: “He defends himself courageously, but he will be defeated”. – From the “(Album of interesting Hunt and Group Pictures)” carried as the 2^nd section. – On strong, wide-margined paper of perfect freshness. – Contrary to the etching the top roundness here stretched to a rectangle and thus additionally charming as collection enrichment.
Offer no. 28,450 / EUR  330. / export price EUR  314. (c. US$ 437.) + shipping

Wolves, Battue on. In front one of the hunters seizing roughly a wolf by the hind leg and aiming at it. The pack coming along. Toned wood engraving by Jules Huyot (Toulouse 1841 – Paris after 1882) after Jean Edouard Dargent, called Yan’Dargent (St.-Servais, Bretagne, 1824 – Paris 1899). Ca. 1870. 31.5 x 21.7 cm.
Offer no. 6,150 / EUR  118. (c. US$ 164.) + shipping

„ … Die (vom Schwiegervater geerbten Par force-Jagd) Ridinger … habe ich in meinem Arbeitszimmer bestens neben einem Gobelin plaziert und möchte sie nicht mehr verkaufen. Besten Dank und ein Kompliment an Ihr Haus, dass sie nach so vielen Jahren noch an mich gedacht haben “

(Herr K.-A. H., 2. Februar 2004)