Burgundian Prince + Princess, at the beginning of the XV^th century. Full-length portraits to the left. He with scepter, she with  falcon. 2 sheets. Coloured woodcut by A. Kunz (?) after August von Heyden (Breslau 1827 – Berlin 1897). (1877.) 20.5-21 x 12.8-13.2 cm.

Lipperheide Ad 46. – Leaves of Costume Knowledge NS 37-38. – Especially sheet 2 somewhat creased. This also with a marginal fold. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 6,346 / EUR  118. (c. US$ 190.) + shipping

Verschuring, Hendrik (Gorkum 1627 – near Dordrecht 1690). Resting hunters, partly dismounted, with their hounds in front of an inn. One of them  with  a  falcon  in  his  right  and  enthusiastically  accompanied  by  his  dog  hastening into the landscape (probably the Italian Campagna). Brush-drawing in several shades of grey wash and a little black over traces of black chalk. Inscribed at lower left with the grey brush: H. verschuring. f.. 250 x 348 mm.

Friedrich Quiring, Eberswalde, with his both stamps lower right on the added former old mounting resp. (Lugt 1041 b + c: deux marques ci-contre la première servit jusqu’en 1920, la à partir de 1921. Elles figurent seulement sur les feuilles).

Also technically a characteristic pictorial work of this Wouwerman influenced master, whose own horses found their followers especially among the artists in northern Germany (see Gerson, Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jhdts., 2^nd ed., p. 220). Verschuring himself also unmistakably in his dogs and in the easiness of the composition.

“ From the many Dutch artists under the Italian sun can be named only the more known. In the forties we meet in Rome … H. Verschuring … ”

(Gerson op. cit. p. 165).

Especially in the heaven mostly only fine foxing, but hardly disturbing since corresponding with the paper tone. – Set into an acid-free passepartout with gilt stamped artist’s name and dates.
Offer no. 28,863  /  price on request

Tischbein II, Johann Heinrich (Haina, Hesse 1742 – Cassel 1808). A Goskawk who captured a Duck. The moment of striking in the reeds. Etching. 13 x 16 cm.

Sheet 42 of the Tischbein set of the “Fair Game” of 1827 – Lindner 11.2083.01; Schwerdt III, 173 – , as a compilation mounted in points of throughout old till earlier impressions. – Trimmed to platemark. Small paper scrape off reaching 4 mm into the left image margin. Here and there little foxing spots.
Offer no. 14,904 / EUR  146. (c. US$ 236.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Great Splendour often covers Heaviest Duty. The  falcon  admired  by  several  birds  of the woods  for  his  splendid  hood  clears them up about his position. Etching. (1744.) Inscribed: J. El. Ridinger inv. fec. et excud., with German-Latin-French subliner. 33.4 x 24.8 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 775. – Plate 11 of the “Instructive Fables from the Animal’s Kingdom for Improvement of the Manners and especially for Instruction of the Youth”

“ by which Ridinger pursued a typical purpose of his epoch. To achieve ‘A Correction of Manners’ by the morale efficary of the art William  Hogarth , almost of the same age as Ridinger, had tried – though in a quite other way – by his paintings and prints … But while Hogarth was trying it by satirical sets as ‘A Rake’s Progress’, 1735, … Ridinger tied up to the tradition of the animal fable as especially suitable to him ”

(Dr. Morét, Ridinger Catalogue Darmstadt, 1999, p. 96).

Superb early impression with fine margins throughout. – In the 2^nd half of the 19^th century mounted on bluish-grey laid paper with the watermark Springing Horse Heawood 2790 (Germany 18^th Cent. Esp. in Doppelmayr, Sonnen-Uhren, Nuremberg 1719) together with SICKTE which is now only underlayed loosely. – Thienemann + Schwarz state “:” after “FABUL” against a full stop here. The one after “fec” quoted by Schwarz missing here.
Offer no. 12,496

– – – Purity suppressed by Invented Pretext. A hare, escaped four dogs, falling  a  prey  to  the  hawk . Engraving by Martin Elias Ridinger (1730 Augsburg 1780). Surely after 1744. 33.5 x 24.9 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 784. – Plate 20 of the Fables and so one of the very scarce four last of the suite, which is one of Ridinger’s finest. Here one dog more than in the drawing. – Superb watermarked print with fine margins throughout. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 12,514 / EUR  1007. / Export price EUR  957. (c. US$ 1545.) + shipping

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Oredatory Birds. They have their special height, colour and kind thus I wished to present them from life at different times and places. Six of them on or before a fallen trunk in front of a rocky scenery opened per numbers in respect of their colour. Etching + engraving. Inscribed: J. E. Ridinger fec. et excud. 1744., otherwise in German as before. 36.9 x 28.1 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 273. – Sheet 31 of the “Wondrous Stags and other Animals”, later also added to the set “Predatory Birds and Owls”. – Later 19^th century impressions made by The Bibliographical Institute were titled as “Eagles and Goshawks”. – Fine impression with typographical watermark. – The 7-line subtext minimally foxed.

Presently available a pictorial fully executed and fully inscribed very nice preparatory drawing from the same year in partially a little washed black chalk per no. 28,484.
Offer no. 12,076 / EUR  870. / Export price EUR  826. (c. US$ 1333.) + shipping

Boel, Pieter (Antwerp 1622 – Paris 1674). The  Falcons. Two of which beating the heron. Meager reeds and landscape scenery, but at the right side two shocked ducks observing the scene. Etching. 16.8 x 24.6 cm.

Bartsch + Wurzbach 2. – Sheet 2 of the “Completely hardly ever occuring (6-sheet) set” (Cat. Davidsohn 677 with the complete copy formerly in the Sträter collection) of prey birds, “Diversi ucelli”, of which Nagler mentions the Rigal copy. In Schwerdt only the first sheet with the title (III, 37) and also here even single leaves are missing in a multitude of catalogues of well-known collections of old masters formed in 19/20^th centuries up to that of the immense Weigel stock (parts I-XXVIII, 1838/57) with its well over items. In the latter only the second suite of wild birds Wurzbach 9-14.

Later impression without the number from the no more quite virginal plate on typographically watermarked laid paper three-sided uncut with 1.7-4.3 cm wide margins. In respect of its practical non-occurrence nevertheless not only thematically an opportunity of degrees, but an artistical-intellectual experience, too, as the rare Boel worked nearly without decoration.

He is “one of the most skilfull animal painters … presumably a pupil of Frans Snyders … He also had etched in copper and delivered masterworks in his prints which deserve the admiration of the artists and connoisseurs. They are rare …” (Nagler, 1835!).
Offer no. 14,120 / EUR  373. / Export price EUR  354. (c. US$ 571.) + shipping

– – Wild Ducks and Bittern by a Pond. Nearby a round tower half hidden by leaf-wood. Vis-à-vis a scant scenery of hills. Etching. Inscribed: P. B. F., but here to read as B. P F. 16 x 23.2 cm.

Bartsch + Wurzbach 5; Nagler, Monogramm., IV, 2831 (“Bartsch not noticed the letters”). – Sheet 5 of the suite as before here with 2.7-5.5 cm wide margins. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 14,121 / EUR  240. (c. US$ 387.) + shipping

Aubry, Charles (France 1^st h. of the 19^th cent.). Chasses Anciennes d’après les Manuscrits des XIV & XVe Siècles. Set of  12  lithographs  (35-41.5 x 27-29 cm). Paris, Ch. Motte, 1837. Large folio. Loosely in orig. laid watermarked wrapper with illustrated lith. frontcover in colour. Uncut.

Schwerdt I, 47; Souhart 28; Lipperheide Tf 24; AKL V, 587, mixing l’Histoire de l’Equitation + Chasses Anciennes to one work, described bibliographically incorrectly, too. – On large strong paper with publishers’ dry-stamp. – Some small tears in the wide white margins restored acid-free. Mostly only within the latters quite minimal brown spots and quite outside a weak waterstreak. The wrapper time-marked as usual but without impairment of its illustration which is dominated by silence as well as rich happening. – Quite in contrast to the “Equitation” set, mentioned also within the title here, rare as also qualified by Boerner (CXII, 2296) already in 1912.

Designed in the so-called troubadour style with a main picture as total scenery and a number of instructive smaller details, explained by text strewn in. By which Aubry (“known lithographer”, Thieme-Becker) “achieved an exemplary effect in his genre. In the late work he renounced quite to this framework. 1822 professor for painting at the Ecole Royale de Cavalerie at Saumur” (AKL). – Signed and monogrammed (2) resp. in the stone throughout, 3 dated with 1835 and 1836 (2) resp.

Une St. Hubert – Chasse au sanglier – Chasse au cerf – Chasse de l’antilope au léopard – La chasse du loup – Chasse au  faucon – Chasse au lievre à force – Des chiens courans – Chasse de gazelles – Sous Charlemagne (i. a. with a splendid hunting pageant with  falconers , the large pack of hounds, bears, lions and cats, partly tamed) – Chasse de l’autruche et de l’éléphant – Chasse au renard. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 12,101 / EUR  620. / Export price EUR  589. (c. US$ 951.) + shipping

Oudry, Jean-Baptiste (Paris 1686 – Beauvais 1755).  Goshawk  in driving attack on ducks in the reeds. Etching by Johann Heinrich Tischbein II (Haina 1742 – Kassel 1808). (1773.) 18.2 x 24.2 cm.

Sheet 40 of the Tischbein set of the “Fair Game” of 1827 – Lindner 11,2083,01 with erroneously Joh. Hch. I Tischbein as author; Schwerdt III, 173 – as a compilation mounted in points of throughout old till earlier impressions. The one here from the collection of the legendary Dr. Strousberg at Berlin und now unmounted. – Back parially weakly browned. – Oudry’s fine sujet of 1733. – Signatures and dates presumably taken away and not “before all letter” as catalogued partly.
Offer no. 14,903 / EUR  253. / Export price EUR  240. (c. US$ 387.) + shipping

Schwerdt, C. F. G. R. Hunting, Hawking, Shooting illustrated in a Catalogue of Books, Manuscripts, Prints, and Drawings Collected by (himself). 4 vols. London, Waterlow & Sons for the Author, 1928-37. Reprint. With an introduction by Kurt Lindner in English-German parallel text. 1985. 4to. With

382 ( some  double  full-page  and  partly  folded  resp. )  plates .

Orig. imitation leather with back-plate.

The  catalogue  of  the  famous  Schwerdt  Collection ,

in the original privately printed in 300 copies only. Reprinted somewhat smaller, but as a very fine edition.

“ The Schwerdt catalogue ranges from early works to those of the present century, mainly from European countries, but also from America and Asia. It is a scholarly work, its contents expertly collated, with informative notes on many items ”

(Snelgrove, British Sporting & Animal Prints 1658-1874, A Catalogue of The Paul Mellon Collection, p. IX).
Offer no. 28,308 / EUR  498. / Export price EUR  473. (c. US$ 764.) + shipping

Was  Ridinger  shy  at  Confrontation  with  the  Own  Work ?

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Innocence suppressed by an Invent Pretext. A hare escaped from three dogs on a rock  falling  a  victim  to  a  wonderfully  feathered  falcon  swooping down. Etching and engraving by Martin Elias Ridinger (1730 Augsburg 1780). After 1767. Inscribed in the plate: J. El. Ridinger. inv: et del. / M. El. Ridinger. sc. et exc: A. V., otherwise as above in German, Latin, and French. 33.5 x 24.9 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 784. – Plate 20 as the final of the splendid fable set in a quite wonderful impression probably watermarked WANGEN along with a figurative label. – With 5-27 mm wide margins all-around. – The repeated “.” after Ridinger not quoted by Schwarz. Instead of the “:” after “inv” here there only a full stop and instead of the “:” after FABUL mentioned by Thienemann + Schwarz for plates X ff. here always only a full stop.

The extremely rare last sheet numbered by the master as “Fab 31” on a side-inverted preparatory drawing with one dog more sold here. This in accordance with Thienemann who mentioned p. 151 a fable drawing numbered 30, which had not been worked in copper. Both numbers show that the master planned more than 20 motives at first. But already the last four were engraved and published posthumously only by his eldest son. This also may be the reason for their scarceness.

In Thienemann’s opinion these last four are of smaller artistic value what is seen here contrary. The partly superabundance of the preceding 16 sheets had been given up in favour of extensive lucidity formulated in superior style. Especially the 20^th offered here, but still more the 17^th fable, are, seen from today, examples of a remarkably further developed artistic expression towards a “new realism”. Assumed, also the 30^th fable seen by Thienemann and possibly further more among the unnumbered and not engraved drawings mentioned by him only globally would correspond with this new direction, so this could be the reason for having completed the set as a torso of 16 sheets only. Because shying the confrontation with the own work in addition to his day’s work. For a flop the set was in no way as the several printing-states of the title illustrate. But also thinkable that the master quite prosaic had only lost the interest in continuation. As documented for the large set of the “Wondrous Stags” for the mid fifties by Jan Hendrik Niemeyer in his (Johann Elias Ridinger’s Wondrous Stags – Beginning and Development of a set).

Undoubtedly, however, the scarcity of this only posthumously published four-sheet set stated already by Thienemann in 1856: they “make themselves very rare”. And in his Ridinger-Catalogue (XXXIV, 1554 items!) Helbing qualified in 1900: “The last (4) numbers are of highest rarity.”

And the moral of this fable itself the great Brockes in Hamburg summed up it with the faithful words printed separately:

“ Enough, one charges the poor with things he never had done. / The impudent rage of the  mighty  birds hits often overmuch the weak hare!”

One may take notice of the fact that Ridinger father had asked Brockes, who died already in 1747, for the text of a fable which he never then has published himself. Compare the “mighty” passage addressed here with Brockes’/Ridinger’s daring social criticism forwarded with the four plates Th. 716-719 of the 8-sheet set “Fights of killing Animals”, called also The Big Fives, published also only long time later in 1760. More to these within the Dresden Address “The Minimized Ridinger” hold on the ceremonial act of the Technische Universität Dresden in honour of the 300^th Ridinger birthday at Grillenburg Castle in 1998.
Offer no. 12,514 / EUR  1007. / Export price EUR  957. (c. US$ 1545.) + shipping

„ das ‚Haupt-Schwein‘ ist gut … angekommen und gefällt … falls sich weitere Funde … auftun, freue ich mich über Ihre Nachricht “

(Herr W. S., 29. August 2002)