The  AHA!  Event  of  the  Month

the  augsburg  recollector

No, no, not the present shepherd there who recently by good word at the right time stirred a nest of vipers and thereupon was vituperated with spite instantly by packs of any color let off of the leash just as packs have it, so that such turned into acquired-new purple. So it’s about the always topical  Ridinger  indeed who drew long, long before the millennial Lebensborn Reich (“Fount of Life”) and the following at first communist child-care-bliss in the – in addition of course of also in quantity smaller religious communities – two confessions town Augsburg

(Mary with the Child at the Ionic Column as yet even larger variant to Schwarz 1521 described here for the first time) as intended by nature for the species man and most largely practiced by this still today in free, that is human order to the welfare of all. And where such natural fact even is just threatened to be cut by the state the consequences use to follow suit. The also symbolic “Flight into Egypt” once was the reaction to the grasp of Herodes’ state power at the children of Bethlehem driven by the pure intent for upkeeping of holding sway.

To both themes we owe marvelous pictorializations, whereby those of the lucky escape from the superpower of Moloch state are subjectively definitely as at the same time invigorating the more favored ones. Ridinger lectured the abuse of power elsewhere. But we owe to him marvelous Father of the Church compositions, outstanding crucifixions, Madonna sheets, and such with the Holy Family just as quite a number of throughout beautiful to most beautiful sheets of saints whose at times pronounced and then here and there perhaps sniffed at look shows how art-historically firm he moved on this field, too. For it is then the

(Monika Heffels). Of course in this the calculation of the protestant Ridinger also was a highly commercial one. But if we go through this series, accompanied by a plenty of surprises about states, we soon discover that red thread winding through the œuvre, leading to Ridinger as a meditating didactic, to the “man of  intent, the planner and designer, the creator out of artistic intelligence”, so Hamburg’s once pope of prints Wolf Stubbe in his 1966 publication on Ridinger. And encounter in the characters selected by him pillar-strong models of Christian and therefore of also our western culture.

On occasion of the 500^th anniversary of death one of these shall be mentioned in this connection vicariously, but with respect to Ridinger also especially: the

In the brown habit of the Minims closely connected with the “grey” Franciscan friars, with the knotty stick as symbol of the wandering beggar. Mezzotint. Inscribed: Ioh. El. Ridinger exc. Aug. Vind., otherwise as above. 51.6 x 42.3 cm.

Th.-Stillfried (1876) 1416 ( “A very fine sheet” ); Counts Faber-Castell (1958) 140. – With Schwarz (1910) under same number with question mark affixed only one with 73 x 55.7 cm larger variant before the letter of the also there mussel plate of the wood emboss and an “excud.” contrary to present “exc.” corresponding with Stillfried, too (“With respect to the measures diverging from St. … barely identical with 1416”).

Not  in  Thienemann (1856) , Weigel, Art Stock Catalogue I-XXVIII (1838/57) , Coppenrath Collection (1889 f.) , Helbing XXXIV (Works by J. E. and M. E. Ridinger; 1900) , Schwarz (1910; see above) , Rosenthal, Ridinger list 126 (1940).

With watermark WANGEN as standing for contemporary impressions. – Two sides with mostly 5 mm margin, below 2 cm, on the right fine little margin getting close to the platemark on 3 cm. Generally rubbed and slightly time-marked with three backed margin tears, one of which reaching into the subject for 5.5 cm. At the back waterstreak at the upper and upper right lateral edge.

Even surpassing the Order of St. Francis in strictness the order of the Minims (Minimi fratres Eremitae) was founded by Francis in 1435 and acknowledged as congregation by Sixtus IV in 1474.

“ The grant of all privileges of the mendicant orders … as well as the canonization of its founder (1519) contributed a lot to its spreading. In the middle of the 18^th century (the order) had more than 450 monasteries with 25,000 religious in 31 provinces ”

(Meyer’s Konv.-Lex., 4^th ed., XI, 660/1).

The rarity of present very beautiful motif preprogrammed by the way as according to expert Sandrart (1675) the technically conditioned extremely fast wearing off mezzotint plate permits 50-60 good impressions only.

Correspondingly already in 1856 Thienemann, pages VIII + 270 :

“ The  mezzotints  are  almost  not  available  in  the  trade  anymore

… all worked by and after Joh. El. Ridinger (are) that rare that they are to be found almost only in some public, grand print rooms. I have come across most of the described ones only in the famous print room at Dresden … ”

Offer no. 14,960 / EUR  930. / Export price EUR  884. (c. US$ 1402.) + shipping

by which the master, business or not, recollectingly together ensured himself of essential roots of western culture, and paid his deep reverence to the long breath of Mother Church. A breath that also and just encompasses a conception of family as attacked as clutch-resistant yesterday by those, today by others, that is under changing banner, with the same aim. Conceivable that today Ridinger, intellectually as technically constantly running in front of his time and moreover parable-sure, would add to his then new conception of fables a no less fascinating train of Pied Pipers. Probably with a deep-red C – as Christian – in the standard as crown of the so abused Berlin bear?

ridinger  –  always  an  experience  of  extra  class