FALCONRY
“ … objects concerned with hawking
always have been of greatest rarity … ”
“ Beside the landgraves of Hesse it were foremost Elector Clemens August … and Margrave Carl Wilhelm Friedrich of Brandenburg-Ansbach who owned large falcon yards ”
Burgundian Prince + Princess, at the beginning of the XVth 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$ 164.) + 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.
Provenance:
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., 2nd 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
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 19th 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. – See the complete description.
Offer no. 12,076 / EUR 870. / export price EUR 827. (c. US$ 1148.) + shipping
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$ 203.) + shipping
Famous Hawking Scenery
Seldom on the Market
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 19/20th 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 almost 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$ 492.) + 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$ 333.) + shipping
Aubry, Charles (France 1st h. of the 19th 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. front cover 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 water streak. 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$ 818.) + shipping
Oiseaux de Proie, Les petits. Partridge chicken together with the hen at a quiet water threatened by a bird of prey. Toned wood engraving by and after Trichon Monvoisin + Frédéric Théodore Lix (Strasbourg 1830 – Paris 1897) resp. Ca. 1870. 31.5 x 22.4 cm.
On buff paper. – The wide white margin here and there feebly foxing.
Offer no. 12,012 / EUR 176. (c. US$ 244.) + 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$ 333.) + shipping
Atkinson, John Augustus (London 1775 – after 1818/33 or even 1861). Shooting a White Hare at Tornio (Finland). A falcon just swooping down on the fugitive hare during two hunters wait in a fir-thicket. That’s all before pointed icebergs. Aquatint by M. Dubourg (before 1786 – after 1838) in its original colouring. Inscribed: Atkinson del. / Published & Sold Feby. 1st. 1813, by Edwd. Orme, Bond St. London. / M. Dubourg sculpt., otherwise as before. 18 x 23.2 cm.
Tooley 225, 79; Thieme-Becker II, 212; Nagler I, 179 f. ( “excellent English painter and draughtsman living in Russia for a long time who worked wonderfull pictures“ ). – From the 1819 2nd edition of FOREIGN FIELD SPORTS , Schwerdt I (1928), 177 ff.: „The coloured plates … are fine, both as regards draughtsmanship and colouring … (The book) is sure to increase in value … “.
Offer no. 11,775 / EUR 115. (c. US$ 160.) + shipping
A Stronghold for instance once was the Marienburg
“ … even resulted in contacts with the Teutonic Knights
who sold the falcons from the Marienburg ”
(Lohmann, [Landgrave George I and the Beginnings of the Hunting Seat Kranichstein], no year, p. 53)
Marienburg, The. View of the castle. Wood engraving for R. Henkel after a photograph by Fademrecht, same place. (1886.) 9.4 x 12.2 cm.
“ If temporally and financially it is not worthwhile to send special reporters … however, on the other hand the effort prevails to ‘illustrate all remarkable events by pictorial representation’, so (more and more it has to be resorted to copies) which are available in increasing numbers: photographs. Not only their more effortless availability, also the changed taste of the audience helped photography to growing importance in xylography …
Photography as new invention
becomes that interesting for the general audience that it puts its stamp on other traditional illustration techniques, too ”
(Osteneck, Zur xylographischen Darstellung im 19. Jahrhundert, in Lüneburger Beiträge zur Vedutenforschung, pp. 120 ff.).
Through which at the same time the previous “for ever recurrent stereotypy (of perspectives criticised by Osteneck) was avoided” and so only frequently rare places and details came into sight. – Continuous local text on both sides.
Offer no. 9,429 / EUR 25. (c. US$ 35.) + shipping
Marienburg, In the Master’s Great Dining-Hall at. Interior view of the great hall with rich figure scenery and look at the window front. Wood engraving after Johannes Gehrts (Hamburg 1855 – Dusseldorf 1921) for Adolf Closs, Stuttgart. (1880/81.) 16.5 x 14.5 cm. – Continuous local text on both sides.
Offer no. 8,442 / EUR 47. (c. US$ 65.) + 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 20th offered here, but still more the 17th fable, are, seen from today, examples of a remarkably further developed artistic expression towards a “new realism”. Assumed, also the 30th 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 300th Ridinger birthday at Grillenburg Castle in 1998.
Offer no. 12,514 / EUR 1007. / export price EUR 957. (c. US$ 1329.) + shipping
Bergmüller, Johann Georg (Türkheim, Swabia, 1688 – Augsburg 1762). IOH. ELIAS RIDINGER / Pictor et Scalptor (sic!) Augustanus / solertissimus Naturae Indag(ator) / ejusque in Animalium praeser(tim) / Delineatione Æmulator / felicissimus / natus Vlmae Suevorum / d. XVI. Febr. A.S. MDCXCVIII / Ars Artifici(s) Amic(us). Half-length portrait, sitting, with brushes + palette as medallion in easel mirror held by Diana sitting to the right, seeing before the artistic eye a royal stag already on the canvas as it lies together with a boar as Diana’s bag below of a pedestal. Sitting on the latter and intimately turned to the master
a hooded falcon together with lateral hawked heron
as well as shot wild goose. And center below a Ridinger hound for sure. The whole set before woody background. Mezzotint by Johann Jacob Haid (Kleineislingen 1704 – Augsburg 1767). Inscribed: I. G. Bergmüller invent. / I. Iac. Haid ad vivum pinx. fecit et excud. A. V., otherwise as above. 39.7 x 26.7 cm.
Thienemann XX, 2; Schwarz, portraits, 3 + ills.; Le Blanc 94; Helbing XXXIV (1900), 2; Schoeller Collection 523 („Very fine mezzotint … Rare“; 1921); Schwerdt III (1928), 133; Ridinger exhibition catalogues: Augsburg (1967) 81 + ills. 1 as well as 82; Kielce (1997) 1 + frontispiece; Darmstadt (1999) I.2 + ills. – Niemeyer, (The Vanitas Symbolism with Joh. El. R.) in L’Art Macabre 2 (2001), 94 ff. – Not in the Coppenrath Collection (1889/90) + at Rosenthal (1940).
The rich beautiful portrait by the former pupil
who stayed on with Ridinger as journeyman since 1726 for a couple of years and created the painted version in 1744 (canvas, 66 x 48 cm, Art Collections Augsburg, inv. no. 8610) which in turn then served Bergmüller together with the head of a hound from a drawing by Ridinger from 1728 as model that then Haid again transferred into the copper, which double authorship of Haid additionally to his long-standing nearness to the master secures the sheet its special original rank. The head of the stag sketched here in the easel mirror in outline only as for the time being spiritual vision only is fully executed in the oil. Bergmüller’s in this regard backward directed execution surely not of accidental nature, rather, also in conformity to the artist’s expression, elucidating the process of creation.
Marvelous impression of this just optically already that great sheet
with margins laterally 2 , top + below 2.5 cm wide
as for the velvety mezzotint allowing by the way only smallest satisfying editions (Sandrart 1675: „50 or 60 … clean impressions“) expressly worth mentioning. – From the front only partially lightly noticeable weak lateral pleat on the level of the lower pedestal. The white margin only touched by a little smudging.
Offer no. 15,185 / EUR 1200. / export price EUR 1140. (c. US$ 1583.) + shipping
Nimrod of Hunting Collectors of all Ages
An unrivaled Catalogue
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$ 657.) + shipping
„ Vielen Dank, und sollten Sie wieder einmal einen ‚(William) Blake‘ in Ihrem Sortiment haben, waere ich fuer eine kurze e-mail dankbar “
(Mr. U. S., 23. Januar 2002)