by which “he Opposed the One by Dürer (as the Standard Illustration up to that Time) to a Depiction

of  Greater  Reality  of  Nature ” (Stefan Morét) .

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (Anno 1748 during the Months of May and June this Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros indicus Cuv. / R. unicornis L.) was to be seen alive at Augsburg just as in the most distinguished cities of Germany thus I could draw it from life … .) A Great One-horned Rhinoceros in its piebald shield standing in front to the left. In the background a lake and palms before a hilly landscape. On the right a steep behind bushes. Etching and engraving. (1748.) Inscribed: 53. / J. El. Ridinger ad vivum del. fec. et excud. A. V., otherwise in German as above and below. 34.4 x 28 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 295; Reich auf Biehla Collection 60; Ridinger Catalogue Darmstadt, 1999, III.11 with ills.; publications of the ridingen gallery niemeyer 20, 1998, no. 29 with ills.; (The XVIII^th Century) XXIV, 2, pp. 163 ff. – Missing in the Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX (1885). – Sheet 53 of the “Wondrous Stags and Other Animals”.

with a detailed inscribed explanation to largeness and colouring :

“ (Was to be seen alive in Augsburg just as in the most distinguished cities of Germany thus I could draw it in its several positions from life. I found measurements of 5 ½ feet in height and 11 ½ feet in length. His colour is dark-brown except for the bottom of the abdomen, the thorax, and the depth of the overlapping folds where it is broken reddish. On its nature and general structure Dr. Parson, an Englishman, has sent a natural history to Mr. Folckes, knight and president of the English academy, which is of quite a different quality than the illustrations he enclosed.) ”

Depicted  is  the  rare  armoured  rhinoceros  “Maid Clara”

Douwe Mout van der Me(e)r, captain of the East Indian Man “Knapenhoff”, had brought along from Asia to Holland in 1741 to show it in Europe until its death in 1758 (so Morét; Rieke-Müller in “Das XVIII. Jhdt.”: about 1741/48). In the course of which

“ as a skilful showman he published fair flyers and engravings with descriptions (‘about 1745 probably he was the first who let his name be mentioned on engravings of the rhinoceros “Maid Clara” by which deliberately stepping out of anonymity’, Rieke-Müller) … Of interest that for the greater part of these graphical depictions of the rhinoceros worked in the 1740s one orientated oneself by Dürer’s famous woodcut of a rhinoceros of 1515 (Hollstein 273 with ills.; Meder 273; Catalogue Darmstadt p. 24 with ills.). That is small wonder in so far as Dürer’s depiction (worked not from life) was imitated on and on in the zoological works up to the 18^th century and thus had influenced lastingly the idea of the appearance of the animal. At this stage with his rhinoceros

Ridinger  now  opposed  the  one  by  Dürer

to a depiction of greater reality of nature drawn from life and thus coming up to the scientific demands of his time ”

(Morét).

Worked after the side-inverted black chalk drawing no. 54 of the Ridinger appendix of the 1869 Weigel catalogue of the left drawings with inscription specifying i. a. that he had drawn the animal in six different positions. The Weigel numbers 50-55 mentioned also by Thienemann IX, 11 should be those six drawings. Belonging to this complex furthermore the three drawings Weigel 707/09, one of which dated 1754, and the two pencil outlines Th. XII, 7, one of these should be the drawing of the Berlin Printroom (Bock, 1921, 8437) shown in Darmstadt (III.12 with ills.). – Following its zoological rank

Ridinger’s  rhinoceros

in  all  its  varieties  is  thematically  as  well  as  artistically  a  much  wanted  collector’s  object .

So the above-mentioned preparatory drawing Weigel 54 worked for transfer to the printing-plate rocketed by the Vaduz Ratjen Collection (acquired by The National Gallery of Art Washington in 2007) from 2-3 thousand pound to 20,000 pound stg. when it was sold by auction at Sotheby’s in 1991. It belonged to the three rhinoceros drawings of the 95-sheet Faber-Castell corpus of Ridinger drawings sold as a whole for 7,800 German mark only when this famous Ridinger collection was sold at auction in 1958.

Correspondingly spectacularly (“Spectacles must be”, Maria Theresia, half-resigning) the presentation of “Maid Clara” in Augsburg, which last-named therewith was paid the reverence as metropolis, too :

“ ‘Strange’ animals have … a special cultural value beyond the courtly living, too, if they contributed to the heightening of the attraction of a metropolis … and to the amusement of its citizens … ‘All diversions which enjoy the minds harmlessly belong among the comforts and advantages of large towns making pleasantly the stay to residents and strangers’ as it’s the meaning of a legal paper (of 1759) ”

(Annelore Rieke-Müller in “‘a Guy with Wild Animals’ – To the Social Position and Conscious Content of Animal leaders in XVIII^th Century” in “Das  XVIII Jhdt.” as above, wherein R.-M. points out also to the competition’s situation of such urban events opposite to the courts, as the French would acquire “Maid Clara” just with the greatest pleasure as

“ the one and only rhinoceros of the 18th century on the European continent ”

(Rieke-Müller) for its menagery in Versailles if the costs for such exotic specialties would not be so exorbitant, e. g. 100,000 ecus for Clara, 2000 guilders for an elephant in 1690. That aspect of an increasing thirst for natural knowledge by the way R.-M. claims for the 2^nd half of the century and supports by documentaries per 1775 ff. Ridinger anticipated already per title to his Fabel Suite of 1744).

On the left within the cloud formations a hardly noticeable weak box pleat coming already from printing. The side margins with only 2-2.5 cm somewhat smaller, but above and below with 5.8 + 8.4 cm resp. finely wide.
Offer no. 15,275 / EUR  1380. / Export price EUR  1311. (c. US$ 1914.) + shipping

„ Herzlichen Dank für die sorgfältig verpackten Bände … “

(Herr H. M., 26. Mai 2007)