“ Excellent
and the Best by this Master here ”
( in Dresden; J. W. v. Goethe )
Ruisdael, Jacob van (Haarlem 1629 – Amsterdam 1682). The Stag Hunt. Light wooded landscape with vast marsh through which the par force hunt goes. Animal and figure accessories by Adriaen van de Velde (1636 Amsterdam 1672). Etching in outline washed with sepia by Adrian Zingg (Saint Gallen 1734 – Leipsic 1816). Sheet size 43.3 x 57.5 cm.
Nagler, Zingg, 4, II (of II) and, Ruysdael, XIV, p. 101; Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael, 1982, per 37 (ills.), erroneously as in reverse. – Comp. as compositionally near Ruisdael’s two wooded landscapes with marsh/pool Slive 36 with fig. 51 which in their turn quote Roelant Savery (1576-1639; ibid. fig. 52; Savery catalogue Cologne/Utrecht, 1985/86, 120) or the painterly “Stag Hunt in the Forest” – see the illustration in Beck, Künstler um Jan van Goyen, no. 823 – by the likewise elder Frans de Momper (1603-1660). Also Rubens’ (1577-1640) “Wooded Interior with Hunter and hunting Hounds” engraved by Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert (1586-1659) should not be overlooked. They all stood sponsor to Ridinger’s Thienemann 282, but 171.
Ruisdael’s infinitely famous
Dresden Hunt
counted by Wurzbach (1906/11) among the “most important and most beautiful (of his paintings) that exist” and recorded as the first of the twelve there. As he classifies him practically in unison with predecessors and successors, too, as
“ undisputedly the most important landscape painter
arthistory knows . ”
And especially in regard of the forest motifs he thinks of the environments of Cleve he might have rambled through. And Slive pp. 70 f.:
“ Goethe made no remarks about the Dresden ‘Cemetery’ in the catalogue he annotated during the course of his visit to the Dresden Gallery in 1790 … He did, however, make notes about six other Ruisdaels in the collection.
The one which made the strongest impression
was the artist’s ‘Stag Hunt’ …
‘Excellent and the best by this master here’ …
(but) the painting was not cited in his essay on ‘Ruisdael as Poet’ published sixteen years later. The changes in Goethe’s taste for Ruisdael’s work cannot detain us here, but it is worth mentioning that his deep admiration for the artist was a lifelong one, and he collected works by and after the artist. ”
The group of trees on the right by the way dominated by a work-familiar dead high tree stump at which consequently one of the hunting servants awaits the stag, directing the hounds on this side by stretched arm and finger.
“ … and even in his bright landscapes (as the one here) a ruin or a rotten tree stump reminds of the transitoriness of the earthly ”
(Nagler, Ruysdael, XIV, p. 93).
For the dead tree/hunter motif in connection with a stag hunt running through water also see Ridinger’s Th. 10 from the set Hunting with Hounds where he quotingly develops Savery’s drawn Tyrolean “Boslandschap met Jagers” of 1609 in Paris (see catalogue of the 1968/69 touring exhibition “Landschaptekeningen van Hollandse Meesters uit de XVIIe Eeuw … in het Institut Néerlandais” no. 138 + plate 1, also Ägidius Sadeler’s engraving of the same year Hollstein 225 as “Three Hunters and two Dogs near a Pool”).
Zingg’s Ruisdael reproduction here in literature the one which. The swamp enlarged compared with the original. With wonderful deepness of the picture
the original washing
in its light brown is of great charm
(“He educated a lot of pupils here who generally had to help his own commercial purposes, and established a lively trade with washed sepia drawings and outline etchings”, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie XLV, 323). Nevertheless his prints are rare as he “was thrifty with the impressions as he wanted to secure the proceeds for his later years in case of being out of work or becoming weak. Only in 1804 … Tauchnitz induced him to publish his works. They (so then possibly the stag hunt, too) appeared in 4 numbers … before the letter, and … with these … For long he was considered as the greatest landscape draughtsman of newer time, and also his landscape studies were praised as model. In the course of the years he was surpassed by other artists though, and especially obscured by (William) Woollett (1735-1785)” (Nagler; the latter’s “La Chasse au Sanglier” of 1760 in a proof before the letter and with provenances Masterman Sykes, 1824, + Esdaile, 1840, sold here).
His development in namely the coloristic landscape subject Zingg owes to Aberli in Bern who mediated him to Wille in Paris where he stayed for seven years and now learned engraving after paintings, too. In 1766 Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, receiver of Ridinger’s one and only own etched dedication per “The Four Daytimes of the Stags” let him be appointed professor for engraving at Dresden where he stayed for the rest of his life.
As the copies published in colours were often trimmed to the image border under loss of the inscription for getting as close to the original as possible so the one here, too. Margins backed of old on the back by surrounding broad strip of rough paper. Both the upper corners stained slightly anoyingly, but in the tone of the wash. On the left reaching something more into the sky as the closed trace of an 8 cm tear, too. Marginally only, however, the surrounding brown margin resulting from a covering mounting board. The rubbing in the left lower corner overlookable as the light teasing in the right one. Small tear of 1.5 cm in the lower margin as a fine trace of a tear in the outer field of the middle sky part, too. All in all nevertheless still fine, worth viewing and framing.
Résumé :
Zingg’s adequate large leaf
in original wash.
After one of the most celebrated Ruisdaels in Dresden. And
“ Thus it is easy to comprehend how Goethe came to praise him as thinker and poet. He concluded from the paintings to the creator … Hercules Segers and especially Rembrandt … portray (nature’s) imposing power and greatness, Jacob van Ruisdael its exalted envenness … ”
(Wilhelm von Bode).
Offer no. 28,483 / EUR 1022. / export price EUR 971. (c. US$ 1355.) + shipping
“ Thank you for your kind help with the Hogarth and for always pleasant correspondence ”
(Mrs. M. K., April 15, 2004)