The AHA! Event of the Month

every month new – every month something else

— December 2007 —

Aha – Ridinger for the Advanced

Go on to read simply further even if you should think to belong not quite – yet – to the illustrious circle of one of the old school like Julius Hofmann, whom in 1922 the great Max Lehrs praised in the catalog foreword of his precious collection of Prints of all Schools of the 15^th to the 19^th Centuries – among them Ridinger’s Roe Herd Thienemann 194 and the Hessian Mirror Stag Th. 332 – with the words

“ He was a collector of the old school … He still believed in the importance of the states, of the pointed or rounded plate corners and gave lovely attention to graver slides, etching spots, polished edges, as it only produced the familiar consort with an old friend.

And an old friend the collection was to him all along. He didn’t know greater pleasure than to tackle a portfolio and to view tenderly sheet by sheet in still hours … May every (of these catalog) pearls come to the right place and help to promote and deepen the love and the appreciation there … ”

“It was the otter . Yes , the playful otter” Heinz Sielmann once jubilated. Analogously hereto for us here and today “Yes , the states and nothing than the states” giving all still hunt only the last spice. Really the last? Or but just only the still uncapped last? Still free of the cream bonnet of a crème de la crème , the Cru Exceptionnel of a PETRUS , that “Legend from Pomerol”? So it is.

“ Precious , rare und seldom ”

find their heightening in proof impressions before all states .

Johann Elias Ridinger, How the Boars ... Proof discharge print ad Th. 66

Namely in those uniques of the still becoming ,

the bursting being filled of the creative moment ,

blowing at us over the centuries , as if we would look directly over the master’s shoulder , would see ,

how he takes at hand

Johann Elias Ridinger, Back of the proof discharge print ad Th. 66

a waste sheet already printed in another manner ,

to use its free reverse

to early proof of a new work .

Would see , how he than reaches for the red chalk to mark those parts necessary to work on further. And than suddenly , here and today , to hold an offer in hands, as only seasoned addresses are able to make them :

Ruddle-marked Proof Discharge Print

from the still unfinished plate

on waste sheet with a mezzotint torso at the back

Johann Elias Ridinger (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (How the boars are hounded in the open on the ball and forced with a full chase of hounds.) Etching with engraving as discharge print. Sheet size 25.3 x 34.2 cm.

Ad Thienemann + Schwarz 66^x). – Verso upper detail of the mezzotint Annunciation Schwarz 1515. – Hardly remarkably cut within the slightly dingy white platemark. Diagonal fold mark in the left lower corner not visible in the just still touched tip of the subject.

Proof discharge print of the only generally complete picture

being still unfinished however in its hatching

and in such a manner with corresponding

ruddled marks by the master for working on

in all parts

and, of course, still before of all letter , too.

“ Because the effect of an engraving is not readable from the plate without further ado like that of a woodcut the artist is used to take proof impressions telling him how and where he has to work on further ”

(Jahn, Wörterbuch der Kunst, 5^th ed., 1957, p. 395/II).

Such proofs documenting the running working process and even with also autograph help marks , yes, explicit waste character in respect of the back printed already in another way as mark of special earliness as lying before here are

of very greatest rareness .

Occasionally on the market and highly wanted as precious of old – so Th. 171 in Bavarian private collection or Weigel’s Art Catalog, pt. XV (1850), 17538, “very rare proof impressions before all letter” or so – by fastidious collectors as collection truffles already the ultimately closing states with only still missing letter. But how all the more then here!

Weigel ibid. 17536 could qualify as, however, possibly only approximately comparable since without hint at autograph addition aside from several further “Very rare discharge prints” 2 sheet “Lion and the Elk” as “Very rare, less finished impressions before all letter”. And Helbing’s 1900 Ridinger mammoth offer (cat. XXXIV) came up per 1408 with a proof copy of the Paradise set whose reverses shew as a spectaculum text to the set of the Fair Game being unused there. Baron von Gutmann however as the Ridinger collector in general (Schwarz Catalog) possessed only two proof impressions of origin, thereof Schwarz 93a before all letter, but without qualification as a discharge print, not to mention ruddled marks.

For definitive proof discharge prints with red chalk like the present one provable here alone the two ones to Th. 193/94 at Counts Faber-Castell (1958, no. 27). In such a way then

a cimelia of first and foremost quality for the graphic Ridinger œuvre .

^x) ENCLOSED

Johann Elias Ridinger, How the Boars ... , Th. 66

the same sheet in a good later impression of the final state

in the sheet size of 24.8 x 33.3 cm, the trimming of the white platemark therewith three-sided a little more than above, the lower margin however – here then thus with the letter – in both cases 3 cm. The subject side not uncleanly time-toned, the back more foxstippled and with four small marginal backings made rather providently.
Offer no. 15,230 / price on request

Don’t you hesitate to step nearer and to pay reverence to these fascinating cimelia of artistically creative processes also when you probably are yet less familiar with them in respect of their outstanding rarity. Aren’t we all in art always only on the way , always on the move to a daily new frontier , to deepen our knowledge and – our fulfilment of that “what washes the dust of the everyday off the soul” (Picasso) ? During those still hours in the collection as an always anew refreshing consorting with an old friend.

Advanced-continuations intended
in loose sequence

Additionally available per 14,662

both sheets of this autonomous set of the par force hunt on stag + boar – Th. 65/66 – as the small thematic forerunner – here the game not yet hunted down, rather still in full flight – to the Imperials Th 67/68 in its final state, honored by Schwerdt 1928 as

“ … full of swift movement ”

and regarding its availability qualified by literature as following :

Weigel XXVIII (1857), Ridinger, 5 (complete in later impressions only); Nagler 39; Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX, 1784 (“Without platemark, mounted, and slightly spotted. Extremely rare ”, 1885! ; later probably separated, compare the copy Th. 65 with Helbing); Coppenrath Collection II, 1454 (“Very rare old impressions”, 1889); Reich auf Biehla Collection 12 (“Very fine impressions, with wide margins. Extremely rare”, 1894); Helbing XXXIV, 157 (only Th. 65, moreover trimmed to platemark and mounted, probably from the 1885 copy above; “Rare”, 1900);Schwerdt III (1928), 135. – Not in the Schoeller Collection (1921) and catalogs Kielce (1997) + Darmstadt (1999).

Here then in old impressions

Johann Elias Ridinger, How the Boar ... Th. 66

and regarding condition adequately to their appearance as

finest Ridingeriana .

And with 34 x 47.3 cm sheet size even more wide-margined than Schwerdt’s copy with 34.5 x 43.5 cm. – Sheet 1 with somewhat thin paper spot in the white platemark laterally lower right. In the right wide white paper margin small corner damage above and tiny tear below. Similar the like on the left side of sheet 2.

In regard of it creation the suite could be connected with the drawn boar hunt Schwerdt III, 217, d (L’Art Ancien 14, 41 with ills.) of 1757 of similar, however upright format with closely related „mighty old tree in the middle distance“ which is passed by the chase. In the engraving here the thick forest of the drawing opens to a hilly clear valley landscape with lateral property, here ten hounds compared with just seven. The drawing additionally without the hunters of which in the engraving three on horseback surge into the picture laterally left. The dynamics of both sheets finds its appraisal in Schwerdt’s words on the drawing : “ … very attractive … full of swift movement .” Mail or call !

„ Habe heute Ihre Sendung dankend erhalten. Freue mich schon, das Buch meinem Mann … zu Weihnachten zu schenken. Liebe Grüße aus … am Dachstein “

(Frau K. G., 12. September 2007)