Extraordinarily Fine Scene
not least in regard of the Landscape
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Loups de 3. ou 4. ans et qui sont d’une age accomplie ont 8. ou 9. petis et vivent a 20. ans. Wolves of 3-4 Years and full-grown ones have 8-9 Whelps and live up to 20 Years. Five howling wolves amidst an especially fine rocky scenery. Etching and engraving. (1736.) Inscribed: 21. / Cum Priv. Sac. Cæs. Majest. / I. El. Ridinger invent. delin. Sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise as above in German, French, Latin, & below. 34.5 x 42 cm.
Thienemann + Schwarz 216. – Sheet 21 of the STUDY OF THE WILD ANIMALS with the subtext of the Hamburg pope of poets, jurist & senator, foremost, however, friend of Ridinger’s, Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747), in German. – Typographic and small figurative watermark. – The exceedingly wide white margin feebly time-marked and on the left with two parallel pricks each from previous loose stitching of installments.
“ What wild and deserted place, what ghastly wilderness, a no less wild and terrible shout, an horrible howling, fills here! … why I think, I even see, at various jagged places, of this cliff-rich scenery, even the rocks howling back. So natural the position, so vivid the figure of these animals is represented, and the rocky nature, that one almost hears an echo … ”
Shortly, not least and by chance already in 1901 Ernst Welisch qualified Ridinger as the indisputably “most important Augsburg landscapist of this time”. Here then
of marvelous warm-toned quality & therefore rarity ,
for even in exemplary old Ridinger collections the old impressions of particularly this so fine large-sized main set frequently figure as closely trimmed, damaged, and fully mounted. So including present one in the rich Silesian collection 1885 at Boerner, 1894 with Reich auf Biehla, while the sheet had remained a desideratum to Coppenrath (1889).
Offer no. 28,091 / EUR 660. / export price EUR 627. (c. US$ 854.) + shipping
– – – The same. Margins on three sides 2.7-3.2, on the right 5.5 cm wide. – Of shining-marvelous quality and therefore rarity.
Offer no. 15,589 / EUR 690. / export price EUR 656. (c. US$ 893.) + shipping
“ I am curious as to the history of this (original Ridinger printing-)plate (just I bought) and the others you have offered. Did you purchase them from the Ridinger estate (indirectly, indeed) or a private collector? These are truly rare one of a kind pieces ”
(Mr. L. A. F., October 28, 2003)