The  AHA!  Event  of  the  Month

Grunenberg, Arthur (Königsberg 1886 – Berlin 1927). Rossebändiger (Horse Tamer). Suite of lithographed title and

11  (instead of 12)  chalk  lithographs

(18-23.5 x 21.5-27 cm), 10 of which inscribed below right in pencil: A. Grunenberg. (Berlin, Wasmuth, 1922.) With lithographed written sheet contents. In orig. h. vellum portfolio (33.5 x 43 cm) with lithographed ills. front cover together with title + author.

Thieme-Becker XV (1922), 146; Vollmer II (1955), 325. – Exhibitions: Kunstsalon J. Casper, Berlin, May 1914 + Galerie Arnold, Dresden, March 1927.

One of 40 copies on untrimmed thin Japan and, lithographed title and contents sheet, Japan vélin.

1. Dioscuri (first sketch) – 2. Dioscuri (second sketch) – 3. Absalom – 4. Amazon looking out – 5. Injured Amazon – 6. Stallion taming – 7. Horse Tamer (replaced, see below, and therefore not signed) – 8. Restive Horses – 9.

Bolting Stallions – 10. Bolting Stallion – 11. The Tamed Stallion (inadvertently not signed) – 12. Morning Ride .

Without sheet 7, “Horse Tamer” for which the supposedly identical, which itself is not the same as the front cover illustration, was trimmed with loss of publisher’s address and presumably numbering – known here a copy once on the market numbered “XXIII/40”, missing on its part the lithographed contents sheet – to the smaller format of the suite itself, consequently it was not mounted under boards either. The latter original passepartouts, not always fitting anyway and regarded as responsible for isolated trifling foxspots in the mostly white field (only sheet 4 generally slightly touched), were replaced by foil-protected mounting on acid-free light cardboard. – The portfolio foxspotted, but scarcely on the front-cover with its fine large representation (15.5 x 13 cm) between the writing in chalk.

present in impressions of deep black, due to the edition of great rarity – so then also not in the hippological Sarazin Collection, Basel, covering 1527 till 1930 and dissolved 1999 – , as reverence by the artistically so singularly brilliant early German 20^th century to milleniums-old equestrian culture, exemplified by the opening sheets of dioscuri (“Sons of Zeus”) + Absalom (son of David) . Just as the set as a whole directly follows the 1921 painting

“ The  Dioscuri  taming  the  Horses ”,

that is Castor + Pollux, the latter according to one of the traditions set by

“ Zeus onto the sky as a reward for their brotherly love … as Gemini or as morning and evening star … Polydeukes (Pollux) is distinguished as pugilist,

Castor  chiefly  as  horse  tamer ;

but both also appear as horsemen or as driver …

The art

“From  the  time  on , when I (18 years old) became acquainted with you

the  service  to  the  Muse

was  horn  against  all  unpleasantnesses  for  me”

(Gerhard Marcks 1959 to Richard Scheibe, quoted after Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 30, 2004).

used to depict the dioscuri as nobly formed hero youths of slender, but strong built … Usually they are formed naked (all just as here, too) or dressed just with a light chlamys. Almost always they appear in connection with their horses, and that standing beside them, rarely as riders ”

(Meyer’s Konversations-Lexikon, 4^th ed., IV, 1001 f.).

The Absalom scene quotes the moment when during the armed conflict with King David with deadly consequence the former was “stopped by his long hair by a terebinth (Pistacia terebinthus, turpentine tree)” (op. cit. I, 54).

Grunenberg, “painter and engraver … devoted himself after legal studies at the suggestion of F. von Lenbach to the art …

especially depictions of dance and rhythmically animated youthful figures … recently he also paints highly colorful flower pieces and monumentally animated group compositions like ‘Dioscuri taming the Horses’ … Besides comprehensive graphic activity” (Thieme-Becker).

And Vollmer supplementing:

“ Preferred as motifs the rider and the dancer and danseuse resp. Uses mostly red chalk or chalk.

Excellent  portraitist  of  the  horse  in  motion ”

The latter then here fascinating up to the final sheet, the back scene of the morning ride whose rider is accompanied by two runners.

Offer no. 15,145 / EUR  2000. / Export price EUR  1900. (c. US$ 3067.) + shipping

250  years  before

Birgit Schumacher. Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). The Horse Painter of the Golden Age. Text + plate vol. 2006. 4to. 591 pp.; 3 ll. + 1 interleaf. With

Orig. cloth. – In English (translations of monograph by Hein Horn, of the catalog by Christiane Zschunke).

CATALOG  RAISONNÉ  on the pictorial œuvre of this admired and favorite artist celebrated particularly for his depictions of horses with usually a white horse as trademark. For the great Wilhelm von Bode Wouwerman was one of the most famous of the Golden Age, worthy being incorporated into his corps d’élite and in such a manner among the few of his standard work “(The Masters of the Dutch and Flemish Painter Schools)”.
Offer no. 28,750 / EUR  461. / Export price EUR  435. (c. US$ 702.) + shipping

“ The prints arrived today! They are very nice. Thank you for excellent service. Please keep me posted for objects I could be interested in! ”

(Mr. J. R. L., September 12, 2003)