Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Tiger-Horse with Ear-Bouquet. The stallion in wonderfully light exercise in a beauty hilly landscape with village standing separated from five horses partly romping and rolling and looking at the viewer. After the portrait painted from life by worked after the painting from life by the amateur artist baron Christian Ludwig von Löwenstern (1701 Darmstadt 1754). Etching with engraving. Inscribed: Lib: Baro de Löwenstern ad viv: pinx. Darmst. / J. El. Ridinger sc. et excud. 1745 + as subtext in German:

“ This Young Tiger-Horse bred at Orange=Polder, a village not far-off Delft in the province of Holland,

had  this  black  ear-bouquet

like the other spots and has been bought as a rarity for a very high price by the Silesian manorial family count Promnitz during their Dutch voyage in 1743. ”

35 x 28.5 cm.

The portrait of the Promnitz trouvaille painted as a hippological wonder thinkably already during the return and entrusted Ridinger as first resort for this for immediate documentation within his running series of zoologically exemplary examples to sheet 38 (Thienemann + Schwarz 280, “The six horses contained in this collection later had been sold also separately”) of the “Representation of the Wondrous Stags and Other Animals”.

Baron von Löwenstern, closely connected with the Darmstadt court and working already as a poet and composer, was like Goethe an amateur artist of a, however, most extensive painted œuvre

“ of richly composed battle scenes in the manner of (Jacques) Courtois (1621-1675; “were esteemed and admired already by his contemporaries in respect of the immediate freshness and liveliness of conception and reproduction, and of the masterly pick-up of the atmospheric ambience … was one of the first out-door painters”, Thieme-Becker VII [1912], 591 f.), hunting pieces, and portraits … For the famous art clock (Ludwig VIII.) gave to Maria Theresa (and had it brought by the young Georg Adam Eger, his court hunting painter, in 1750) L(öwenstern) worked the first two designs. In some portraits by his (court painter) friend Joh. Chr. Fiedler L. painted the battle scenes in the background, so demonstrably on the portrait of the landgrave of 1741 … Chief work: Battle at Dettingen, painted for the landgrave in 1746. 200 of such battle and horse pieces were located in the possession of the wife of the hunting master von Reischbach … Fiedler painted his portrait, engraved in mezzotint by J. J. Haid (pupil and subsequently still journeyman with Ridinger, originator of his portrait as well in oil as as “programmatic mezzotint” [Gode Krämer]) ”

(Thieme-Becker XXIII [1929], 328).

Beyond  of  this  all  in the case here of finally family and contemporarily historical high importance the thematic reference to the Silesian immediate counts  von  Promnitz  rooting in deep history as purchaser of the thoroughbred “Tiger”. Since 1542 in possession of the dominion Pleß in the administrative district Oppeln with ancestralscats in Sorau + Pleß the family brought force several members of general importance. Although the dominion came into the possession of the house Anhalt-Koethen already in 1765 (after the die out of the Promnitz family already at that time?), the “Hunting Castle” Promnitz survived the centuries up to now and in the fall of 1913 it served to the German emperor Wilhelm II as well as a place of work as a refuge for stalking, so, i. a., on the known one of 26 points hunted on September 12.

“ namely the replacement of Erich von Falkenhayn as chief of the general staff by the legendary field-marshal Paul von Hindenburg (later the last president of the Weimar republic who then nominated Hitler to a Chancellor of the Reich as result of the 1933 election only with reluctance, yet, distace) and at the same time the appointment of general Erich Ludendorff (ill-reputed for his later attendance at the march to the Munich General Hall in 1923) as First QM General. Furthermore then to mention the resolve for establishing a Polish state and finally

the  declaration  of  the  unrestricted  U-boat  war

leading  to  the  declaration  of  war

by  the  United  States  to  the  German  Reich “

(Andreas Gautschi in Gautschi and Rakow, [Wilhelm II and the Chase]. Bothel, Nimrod publishing house F. Rakow, 2006, pp. 234 f. along with illustrations of castle + park Pless and especially of the “study of His Majesty in the Hunting Castle Promnitz [Pless]“).

For Promnitz see also [General German Biography] XXVI (1888), pp. 663 f.; Magno, [Historical Description of the Residential Town Sorau of the Immediate High Counts Promnitz], Leipsic 1710; König, [Biographic Lexicon of all Heroes and Military Persons which have risen to Fame in Prussian Service], vol. III, Berlin 1790; Bülau, [Secret Stories and Enigmatic Men], vol. II, 2^nd ed., Leipsic 1863.
Ref. no. 14,946 / in stock – not catalogued / request description & offer

„ Just received the James Figg item safely today. I have a couple questions. Art in general is new to me so I‘m asking you to educate me on this item … First of all I‘m happy with the item, just trying to understand it better … Thanks again “

(Mr. A. C., March 27, 2008)