Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (How the boars are hounded in the open on the ball and forced with a full chase of hounds.) Etching with engraving as discharge print. Sheet size 25.3 x 34.2 cm.

Ad Thienemann + Schwarz 66. – Verso upper detail of the mezzotint Annunciation Schwarz 1515. – Hardly remarkably cut within the slightly dingy white platemark. Diagonal fold mark in the left lower corner not visible in the just still touched tip of the subject.

and, of course, still  before of all letter , too.

“ Because the effect of an engraving is not readable from the plate without further ado like that of a woodcut the artist is used to take proof impressions telling him how and where he has to work on further ”

(Jahn, Wörterbuch der Kunst, 5^th ed., 1957, p. 395/II).

Such proofs documenting the running working process and even with also autograph help marks , yes, explicit waste character in respect of the back printed already in another way as mark of special earliness as lying before here are

of  very  greatest  rareness .

Occasionally on the market and highly wanted as precious of old – so Th. 171 in Bavarian private collection or Weigel’s Art Catalog, pt. XV (1850), 17538, “very rare proof impressions before all letter” or so – by fastidious collectors as collection truffles already the ultimately closing states with only still missing letter. But how all the more then here!

Weigel ibid. 17536 could qualify as, however, possibly only approximately comparable since without hint at autograph addition aside from several further “Very rare discharge prints” 2 sheet “Lion and the Elk” as “Very rare, less finished impressions before all letter”. And Helbing’s 1900 Ridinger mammoth offer (cat. XXXIV) came up per 1408 with a proof copy of the Paradise set whose reverses shew as a spectaculum text to the set of the Fair Game being unused there. Baron von Gutmann however as the Ridinger collector in general (Schwarz Catalog) possessed only two proof impressions of origin, thereof Schwarz 93a before all letter, but without qualification as a discharge print, not to mention ruddled marks.

For definitive proof discharge prints with red chalk like the present one provable here alone the two ones to Th. 193/94 at Counts Faber-Castell (1958, no. 27). In such a way then

a  cimelia  of  first  and  foremost  quality  for  the  graphic  Ridinger  œuvre .

in the sheet size of 24.8 x 33.3 cm, the trimming of the white platemark therewith three-sided a little more than above, the lower margin however – here then thus with the letter – in both cases 3 cm. The subject side not uncleanly time-toned, the back more foxstippled and with four small marginal backings made rather providently.
Offer no. 15,230  /  price on request

„ herzlichen Dank für die rasche und ausführliche Behandlung meiner Anfrage. Ich bestelle hiermit beide o. a. Gebote … bin ich auch mit Vorauszahlung einverstanden “

(Frau R. R., 20. November 2002)