The Ridinger ,
who inspired the “Blue Rider”
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Trotting. Open place in front of the ruins of an once imposing estate with group of four horses and six grooms under supervision of the equerry. Finely bordered pen and brown ink with grey wash. (1722.) 214 x 340 mm.
The original drawing before being side-inverted for the preparation of the etching for plate 3 – Thienemann 608 – of the first riding school as the wonderful evidence of the perfection of style Ridinger had already reached in the early age of 24 as stated repeatedly already with regard to others of his early works.
So Nebehay 88,2 in respect of the 1721 drawing to Th. 1: “Hence this drawing is of importance for the knowledge of his style already perfect in young years.” And generally Thienemann for the capabilities after his return – not before 1719 – from the three-year stay in the house of Baron/Count Metternich in Regensburg: “… so that all connoisseurs admired him for his skill and power reached as well in historic as animal pieces.” And in such a way corresponding with
“ In art great caliber is present in its perfection from the beginning .
Also the first works of an artist have this caliber
already in themselves , in their originality , in their perfect shape . There is nothing of that development of the artist of which there is so much speaking .
There is not any development of the great caliber in art “
(Gershom Scholem in his 1958 laudatory on Samuel Josef Agnon quoted after Itta Shedletzky in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of March 7, 2007).
The etchings for the 23-sheet-suite, however, were done by Johann Daniel Hertz and Johann Balthasar Probst for Jeremias Wolff, all situated in Augsburg, who published the suite in 1722. Signature and date of the drawings – with these now 18 leaves are known to have overcome to us – to be found on the title: JOH: ELIAS: RIDINGER: invenit et delineavit Anno 1722. Manner and typing of the inscription quite according to that of an Alexander-the-Great-drawing of 1723.
The scenery, dominated by the horse trotting at the longe on the right, subtitled in the etching “In many the pace is correct …”.
While on the left a horseman only mounts his horse, held by the groom, the one and only already mounted one trains his own, good to look in the middle distance beyond the longe. And just whose detail
of 1913 (Lankheit 839, 27 x 29.3 cm).
Worked by Marc in the year of the “Tower of the Blue Horses” as one of the icons of the modernity, “the richest (year of his) creativeness” (Christian von Holst). And along with the simultaneous woodcut “Lion Hunting after Delacroix” the work stands for that time of that “well is to speak of a literal entry of the rider into the œuvre of Marc … The animalizing of art aimed at again and again by Marc by abstracting insight into the horse’s and the remaining animal world’s nature … now tips over repeatedly
into the revival of the unity of horse and rider
… He presents himself as ‘Blue Rider’ by a postcard to Else Lasker-Schüler of 1912, who stands beside and behind resp. of his horse and blends into a unity with him (from the view here in anticipation of the “powerful rhythmic depiction” of the “Riding Scene after Ridinger”) … The hound below right (on the latter) which may remind the onlooker rather of a hunting scene, is owed likewise to Ridinger’s ‘Riding Art’ (comp. the corresponding hounds on the sheets 5, 18 and 22). It looks back as it would see where his master, the rider, stays away. An eager atmosphere of departure determines the scene
making of Ridinger’s background figure of the rider
the proper protagonist .
The rider and the horse form a unity in their extreme impulse of motion. Although
with Ridinger Marc picks up a specialist of the trained horse
it does not go for him on behalf of an artificial symbiosis of man-animal articulating itself especially by training of the horse in the artificial paces” (Andreas Schalhorn). And
“ Illuminatingly that Marc , very well versed in knowledge of art history ,
turns to as models just these masters of the presentation of the horse
(Delacroix and Ridinger) of the 19th and 18th centuries resp. ”
(von Holst).
But by which in regard of Ridinger the matter doesn’t rest by no means. For already his oil “Playing Weasels” – Hoberg-Janssen 144 with ills. – worked two years before, 1911, reveals the knowledge of quite several Ridinger coppers from entirely different sets. Marc shows two weasels, of which the one, bowed over a bough, looks down upon the other sitting in raised attitude. The foliage besides of an eccentricity as in this ostensible density used by him only still on the two “Acts under Trees”, H.-J. 143, of the same year. For the thematic primer detonation stands Ridinger’s small sized sheet “The Weasels”, Th. 479, of 1740 as sheet 89 of the set “Design of Several Animals”. Also here two playing ones, but both on the earth in completely different surroundings. The latter Marc splitted up. And took the attitude of the two animals from sheet 86 of the set, the two pine martens Th. 476 (here per 7,332 as well as together with the pendant of the two beech martens Th. 475 per 15,007). The young one of them, bowing over a low bough like at Marc and looking at the dam standing on the hind paws against the trunk, baiting with a captured bird. But the bizarre foliage – and as such one Sälzle characterized it expressly in his 1980 edition of the preparatory drawings to the following set – as rather rarer for Ridinger, too, he took over from sheet 19, Th. 181, of the concurrent suite of the “Illustration of the Fair Game with the Respective Traces and Scents” with the marten on the tree at the same attitude and a weasel on the ground shown, however, neutrally.
Thus Marc formulated his “Playing Weasels” just so by means of three Ridinger copies as the latter on his part his “The Amusement of the Shepherds” after Watteau, Thienemann-Stillfried 1397, composed from four models of the French. That finally the foliage as more typical for Ridinger was not unfamiliar to Marc shows the right group of trees of his forest picture “The Würm near Pipping” from 1902/03, H.-J. 15 with ills. By the way a lithograph of the same name has been preceded to the oil of his “Playing Weasels” in 1909/10.
But also the par force scenery on the watercolor “Ried Castle” worked one year later – Holst, ills. 11, p. 29 – stands for a further example of Marc’s occupation with Ridinger,
which in this plurality has been missed till now .
The quotes from Christian von Holst (Ed.), Franz Marc – (Horses). Catalogue of the 2000 exhibition of the Staasgalerie Stuttgart – special issue 2003 – , pp. 122, 250 f. + 165 f. with illustrations 151 f., 208 + 9. – See i. a., too, Franz (Ed.), Franz Marc – (Powers of Nature, Works) 1912-1915. Catalogue of the exhibition in Munich + Münster, 1993, nos. 138 f. with ills. pp. 300 f.
The ruins reminding at Ridinger of southernly patterns and thus surely a reverence to Italy to where this was on the point of going to during his apprenticeship at Ulm only a few years ealier.
Although Ridinger created five riding schools with 111 etchings altogether, one has to go back to Weigel’s inheritance listed in the 1869 Catalogue of a Collection of Original Drawings including a Special Section “Johann Elias Ridinger’s Bequest in Drawings” to find a few (12) pictorial drawings belonging to this part of his rich œuvre, partly dated 1744 to 1760 (nos. 816-827).
The 19-sheet lot 828 may well have consisted of studies just as in view of riding schools no. 318 with its 305 leaves “Studies, Outlining(s) and executed Drawings of Horses and their Races, Riding School, in black and red chalk resp., pen and ink, of the years 1717 to 1760”. Otherwise the works in question would surely have been included within the section of “Riding School” of lots 816 ff.
Also within the 234 drawings contained in 146 lots of the “Fine Collection of Drawings and Engravings by Joh. El. Ridinger of the Possession of a renown Collector” sold at the Wawra auction in Vienna on May 19 ff, 1890 not one pictorial drawing on this theme is to be found.
According to our admittedly not complete but comprehensive archive there are only those bare preparatory drawings and studies which appeared single or in groups on the market since Weigel. As a more comprehensive collection at last a lot of chalk drawings of which 26 belonged to the Small Riding School of 1760/61 traded hereself in 1987.
This only interupted by two earlier events, followed by the one here:
In 1986 Prince Johannes of Thurn and Taxis contributed five drawings for Ridinger’s New Riding School for the tombola of the Ball of the Press in Bonn. This prize was the only one not entered in the ball’s almanack with its worth. “Connoisseurs therefore assumed that
the Ridingers were more valuable
than the Mercedes indexed as the main prize ”
(Bonner General-Anzeiger May 26, 1986).
Five years later a set of 16 completely executed original drawings in the same direction as the etchings of the 23-leaved New Riding Skills of 1722 debuted with an estimation of 360,000 marks at an auction. All mounted at the beginning of the 19th century and fancily bordered on the mounting paper in black ink, on the sides additionally with a line of horseshoes crescending from top and bottom . This finally mounted on a wooden frame and than framed in black and bronze frame.
This stock counted up to the recent time at least 18 works, but was decimated by two by way of separation. These (see offer no. 28,072, too) presented in the same kind as described above. For more timeless presentation the black and bronze frames have been removed, the drawings themselves set into acidfree passepartouts with gilt stamped artist’s name und dates, covering also the additional edging as being not originally intended by Ridinger.
In such a way then are
Pictorial Ridingschool-Drawings Paramount Ridinger-Rarities .
The condition of the one said here is quite fine. The tender edging not any more covering in all places, here and there somewhat cut away also. The almost uniform slight browness in no way a nuisance to the general impression. That the plasticity was diminished a bit – supposedly by influence of light – attracting attention only by comparison with the parallel drawing. And generally enthusing the vigour of the drawing itself reflecting the youthfulness of the artist himself.
The virginity of both the drawings offered here as well as that other part offered formerly can be supposed as being a lot more ancient than back to Weigel. Just as other works of the early twenties Ridinger did not engrave himself, e.g. for the group of Alexander and Pharaoh, for which the drawings cannot be traced neither with Weigel, who took over the artistic estate in 1830, nor otherwise, the drawings for the Riding School of 1722 seem to have been passed over to the publisher. Later on they obviously went their own way without touching the documented market. To this
attraction of being preservated extraordinarily
comes – since nevertheless artistically complete – the fascination of great earlyness accompanied by being embedded within the evolution of cultural history:
“ Art history looks at Ridinger not only as the perfectionist of the hunting engraving of the 18th century, but also the masterly interpreter of the depiction of the rider and the horse …
“ It should … be remembered that the pure artistic interest in the horse is a main part of western art history since antiquity, since the origin of the Parthenon frieze … Only in the renaissance the (equestrian art) flourished with new liveliness. First in the frescos of Benozzo Gozzoli and Vittorio Carpaccio, in the drawings of Pisanello and Leonardo da Vinci … It was reserved to the Dutch to develop masterly realism in depicting the horse …
“ With this we are at the preconditions for the art of Ridinger. It can be assumed that he became acquainted with Dutch horse pictures in Augsburg. They were available in engravings and were sometimes copied as well. From such models which might have been mediated to him by his tutor Rugendas and from the indepth study of the animals theirselves he developed his quite personal mastery in depicting the horse. One feels the pleasure about viewing the living creature, about the harmonic concurrence of anatomy and movement, about the inner symmetry of horse and rider, last but not least also by the elegance of attitude characterizing all engravings of Ridinger ”
(Herbert Schindler in the introduction of the 1975 facsimile edition of the Small Riding School.
If there is the question of elegance then there should also be mentioned Karl Sälzle, who in 1980 prefaced the facsimile edition of the stock of drawings for the Fair Game set by saying:
“ Who , however , wants to become acquainted with the
whole mastership of Ridinger
has to reach for his drawings …
for only they show his genius .”
To this now then the chance here. In absolute quality,
at hand of unique items of outstanding rarity .
For the Riding School of 1722 .
Of baronial , at last countesque pre-possession .
Offer no. 28,071 / price on request
„ Herzlichen Dank für die sorgfältig verpackten Bände … “
(Herr H. M., 26. Mai 2007)