Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Starting Stag is raised by the Launch Hound! On the right the stag of odd sixteen points takes a high leap over shrubbery, behind him on a long lead the leader held up with all his might by the search groom. From the left three pack hounds let loose come along, front left a piqueur signals with the bugle. Etching and engraving. Inscribed: Joh. El. Ridinger del. sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise in German as above. 31 x 48 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 56; Weigel, Art Stock Cat., 4a + 16545 (“old now only seldom occurring impressions”, 1847!); Stubbe, Joh. Elias Ridinger, 1966, pp. 15 + plate 7; Solms-Laubach, (The Finest Hunting Pictures from European Collections), 1961, no. 53 with double full-page illustration.

“ In a thick wood we observe the price of the hunt, the stag fleeing with all his might, pursued and barked at by the leader held up by the piqueur. Hunters try to even increase the flight of the frightened game by yelling, the sound of bugles, and cracks of the whips, and to hand him over to the pack hastening after ”

(Thienemann).

On strong wide-margined (5.7 cm on the sides, 6-8 cm above and below) line paper watermarked WANGEN uncut on the right and in the right upper margin. – In the left margin traces of former binding, especially in the right white margin negligible acid-free repairs, above larger, below smaller blue trace and weak brown spot and water-streak resp. in the white margin. A diagonal fold not noticeable in the subject.

Extensive 10-line subtext in German. – Marvelous impression, fully valid illustrating Wolf Stubbe’s (till 1969 Supreme Custodian of the print room of the Hamburg Art Gallery) rating of just this sheet :

“ … belongs to the later imposing series of the Par Force Hunt of the Stag … a richly differentiated, thereby however even forest gloom gradated far into the depth (binds) all details. Two spaces of light, clearly separated by the central two-trunk tree, here elucidate the homogenous forest shadow. ”

And as a whole this “late imposing series of the par force hunt” is for him

an  absolutum  of  harmony  and  ripe  mastership

as he explains by example of its sheets here and 12 (Th. 60) resp. 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 here illustrated by him :

Of the preparatory drawings three are dated from 1746 (Th. p. 274, folder I, b to Th. 49 and one not engraved + Schwerdt III, 216, bottom 1 to Th. 60) as well as one from 1750 (Schwerdt, as before, 2 to the sheet here), both the latter as variants.

Offer no. 15,175 / EUR  1290. / export price EUR  1226. (c. US$ 1706.) + shipping

„ vielen Dank für die schnelle Zusendung des Buches ‚Der Ahorn‘. Ich freue mich insbesondere, weil dieses Buch mein Opa geschrieben hat und es somit für mich eine große Bedeutung hat. Viele Grüße aus Berlin “

(Frau U. C., 7. Juni 2004)