“ …  to  bring  the  Leaders  onto  a  Stag  Scent ”

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Pre-Search with the Leaders for the Par Force Hunt! Front right one of the search grooms with his leader comes out of the wood, in the center two further grooms, one reading the scent, the other holding the hound in his arms. Far left a further one bringing the hound onto the scent. Etching and engraving. Inscribed: Joh. El. Ridinger del. sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise in German as above. 30.9 x 48.2 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 49; Weigel, Art Stock Cat., 4a + 16545 (“old now only seldom occurring impressions”, 1847!); Stubbe, Johann Elias Ridinger, 1966, pp. 15 f. – Not in the Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX (1885 !).

Title of the first part of the set (“The Par Force Hunt’s 1^st. Part.”).

“ In a fine deciduous wood piqueurs and search grooms are busy to bring the leaders onto a stag scent and keep them on it ”

(Thienemann).

Extensive 10-line subtext in German. – Impression on strong laid paper with typographic watermarks untrimmed on the right and at the right upper margin. Lateral margins 4.5-5, above and below 6-8 cm wide. – In the left lateral margin marks of former binding. Particularly in the somewhat time-marked right white margin acid-free backings. The upper margin additionally at the right edge torn off for about 7 x 1.5 cm, but with respect to the paper margin’s width as inessential as a quite feeble brown spot lower right.

As a whole this “late imposing series of the par force hunt” is for Stubbe, till 1969 Supreme Custodian of the print room of the Hamburg Art Gallery,

an  absolutum  of  harmony  and  ripe  mastership

as he explains by example of its sheets 8 + 12 (Th. 56 + 60 in comparison to the corresponding ones of the early “Princely Hunting Pleasure”. Accordingly, too, Rolf Biedermann:

“ … in the … ‘Par Force Hunt’ … the compactness of the picture setting by homogeneous light effect and greater approximation of tone values prevails. Added a more deep-spaced formation of the landscapes and a closer clamping of the composition of figures ”

(Ridinger Catalogue Augsburg 1967, p. 3 of the introduction). – It belongs

“ to  the  most  wanted  works  by  our  master ,

all the more as after the abolition of the par force hunt it even got a historical value ” (Thienemann) – and shows in four parts

the  complete  course  of  a  classic  par  force  hunt

whose inventor, according to Döbel, Saint Hubert “shall be” – see on this in general as in detail Gisela Siebert, Kranichstein, 64 f. – and whose respective stations are explained by the extensive subtext.

“ In the fast pursuit of the stag by the pack and the mounted hunters, in his distinction from the other deer and in finding again the lost trace charm and meaning of this hunt were based. ‘It is the same an amusing and pleasant hunt for those who enjoy riding, want to hear the sound of the hounds, and estimate the blowing, as in which actually the hunt consists of’ … Döbel writes in his … ‘Jäger-Practica’. The par force hunt requested excellent huntsmen … who had to be at the peak of hunting training of their age, had to know the hunt and ‘correct signs’ of the stag, command their horse, work with the hounds, and blow the horn ”

(Siebert, op. cit., 56).

So  about  the  rank  of  the  set  there is unanimity in the old as in the present literature. From Nagler’s rating of 1843

“ One  of  the  most  beautiful  works  by  Riedinger ”

over Thienemann’s and that by W. Schmidt in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (XXVIII, 507) of 1889 up to count Solms-Laubach’s remark of 1961 considering the engraving of the “Starting Stag” illustrated by him :

Of the preparatory drawings three are dated from 1746 (Th. p. 274, folder I, b to this sheet and one not engraved + Schwerdt III, 216, bottom 1 to Th. Th. 60) as well as one from 1750 (Schwerdt, as before, 2 to Th. Th. 56), both the latter as variants.
Offer no. 15,173 / EUR  1290. / Export price EUR  1226. (c. US$ 1944.) + shipping

„ Habe heute Ihre Sendung dankend erhalten. Freue mich schon, das Buch meinem Mann … zu Weihnachten zu schenken. Liebe Grüße aus … am Dachstein “

(Frau K. G., 12. September 2007)