“Extremely rare”
The Hunters’ and the Hounds’ Pleasure
and that already 110/120 years ago !
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Pleasure of Hunting. Planning, departure, refreshment, and rest of huntsmen + pack(s). Fours stations with 6 lines subtext each on 2 sheets. Etching + engraving by Martin Elias Ridinger (1730 Augsburg 1780). Inscribed: XVI. and XVII. resp. / Ioh. El. Ridinger, inv. et del. / Mart. El. Ridinger, sculps. A. V. 31.8-32 x 21.4-21.6 cm.
Provenance
Radulf Count zu Castell-Rüdenhausen
(1922-2004)
Thienemann + Schwarz 359/360; Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX, 1875/76 ( “Extremely rare”, 1885! ); Reich auf Biehla Collection 103/04 ( “Extremely rare”, 1894! ). – Sheets XVI + XVII of the 46-sheet set “To the Special Events and Incidents at the Hunt” (“The rarest set of Ridinger’s sporting line engravings”, Schwerdt) etched exclusively by Martin Elias after predominantly fatherly designs and concluded posthumously in 1779.
Image 1
“ The hunter’s artful cunning here thinks about new nets …
Distributes his hounds , fills his pockets full of
hail and fire , to fell by this the boar … ”
shows two groups in hilly landscape, one of which – with a hound à la Bavarian Hiesel towering above all other of its kind – still plans while the other already moves downhill.
Image 2
“ The hunter’s art here knows to reach the hare ,
The hounds support him with fastness , too … ”
in preparation of the hare hunting.
Image 3
“ A clear spring … often gives … refreshment to the exhausted hunter , too ,
Who sometimes curses at his luck and hunt ;
When he has to bear patiently in wood and field
and in the hottest days heat , dust , and fear. ”
Image 4
“ Quite grown hot by hunting and exhausted by running
Master and hound refresh themselves in stretched out rest … ”
The set itself “arranged almost throughout so that always two by two correspond with each other and form pendants, just as they have been sold in pairs, too” (Thienemann). Here then the rare sujets in
warm-toned impressions of the first edition
with the Roman number
(“If they are missing, so this points to later impressions”, Thienemann).
On heavy laid paper with typographic watermark and sheet sizes of 51 x 33.8 (XVI; at top still the two original little hang-up holes, three most little tears in the extremely wide lower margin acid-freely backed) and 43.7 x 31.5 cm (XVII; untrimmed on the left side, weak little water streak in the left corner of the upper margin) resp., the varyingly wide margins optically well proportioned round about.
Offer no. 14,956 / EUR 1176. / export price EUR 1117. (c. US$ 1551.) + shipping
“ Thank you Mr. Niemeyer – I will take it! … It should look very nice in my new office. Best regards ”
(Mr. J. R. L., January 6, 2006)