Accompanied by Really Superb Rarity
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (Greenlandish Polar Bears.) Mezzotint printed in brown by Johann Elias Haid (1739 Augsburg 1809). Inscribed: Joh. Elias Ridinger pinxt. / Joh. Elias Haid fecit. / Groenlaendische See=Baeren. 28 x 33.2 cm.
Thienemann-Stillfried (1876) + Schwarz (1910) 1386 and Reich auf Biehla 283 ( “… of a very rare sheet”, 1894 ! ), otherwise
missing in the important Ridinger collections
over more than a hundred years
as in the significant properties of dealers. Starting with Thienemann himself (1856) and Weigel (1838/57) over the Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX (1885), Coppenrath (1889/90), Helbing (1900; besides 10 drawings 1030 prints plus states + doubles!), Schwerdt (1828/37), Rosenthal (1940) up to Counts Faber-Castell (1958; 106 drawings, 1239 prints!). Here over the decades nevertheless mediated into Bavarian + Rhenish private collections as two important contemporary ones and now available once more.
In 1890 the drawing hereto figured as lot 34 with the remark “for the undescribed (sic!) and rare mezzotint by the master” within the “Fine collection of drawings and engravings by Joh. El. Ridinger from the possession of a known collector” at Wawra in Vienna.
If the impulse emanates from Johann Melchior Roos’ – for works after his father Johann Heinrich stands Thienemann 793-806 – painting of the White Bear in Schwerin of 1729 with also two animals cannot be decided for the time being. See their colour illustration in the exhibition catalogue “Die Malerfamilie Roos in Deutschland”, without date, but before 1998, p. 21, commented by Kristina Hegner pp. 20 f. with
“ The depiction of the white bear belongs in its facet-like concentration on one to two animals and thanks to their rare colour to one series with the exotic animals Roos portrayed (after princely menageries) … Besides the aspect of the painted natural-history specimens increasingly that of the animal portrait comes into the foreground and finds its effective expression in this painting. Contrary to this stands the comprehensive depiction of ‘White Bears in a Rocky Ravine’ of already 1718 (illustrations in Roos Catalogue Kaiserslautern, 1985, p. 38, + Jedding, Joh. Hch. Roos – Werke einer Pfälzer Tiermalerfamilie in den Galerien Europas, 1998, no. 367, as pendant to the Brown Bears, ills. 366; also see the White Bear in Johann Melchior’s Kingdom of the Animals of 1728 in Brunswick, ills. Jedding 374). ”
And Hermann Jedding (Der Tiermaler Joh. Hch. Roos, Straßburg/Kehl 1955 as vol. 311 of Studien zur dt. Kunstgeschichte, pp. 188 f.) saying in advance:
“ (Johann Melchior) continues the tradition of Andreas Ruthardt in direct line and leads over to the game hunts of Elias Ridinger. ”
Within the sets the White Greenlandish Bear figures as leaf 3 of the set of bears, Th. 527, and, reduced in size + foxy-red, within the Coloured Kingdom of Animals as Zeydelbär, Th. 1081, and as White Spitsbergen Greenlandish Bear per 1082 resp. See on this the pen-and-ink drawings 755 (Zeydelbär), 757 (White Greenlandish Bear) + 758 (White Spitsbergen Greenlandish Bear) from 1754 in the Ridinger appendix of Weigel’s catalogue of drawings left behind of 1869. In connection with these also the Greenlandish Polar Bears of the mezzotint here may have been created.
Absolutely perfect impression of outmost beauty
on wide-margined (2.5-3 cm, here quite light touch of foxing spots) strong laid paper watermarked AMP.
Thematically there are two bears of which the one in front, nose over the ground, strolls to a cavern while the other roars up to the polar fox lurking right above of the hole. A “Very well executed picture” Count Stillfried judged when he made known the plate for the first time.
One of those “passing(s) over of
rarer compositions
by the engraving” which make “(Haid’s) work (as mezzotint engraver; since 1788 director of the Augsburg Academy, journeys to Venice and the Netherlands, ”got orders from northern Germany up to Suisse“) valuable to us” (Thieme-Becker XV, 482 f.). Here in the deep brown characteristic of only the early plates which is later replaced by a pale grey. And thus beyond its rarity together
a general top item of the 18th century graphics .
Offer no. 14,395 / EUR 956. / export price EUR 908. (c. US$ 1281.) + shipping
„ danke für die prompte Lieferung der beiden hübschen Cassas-Blätter (von Antiochia). Den Überweisungsauftrag gab ich gestern zur Bank. Viele Grüße und ein schönes Wochenende … “
(Herr K. O., 6. Februar 2009)