Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (To Whistle the Roe! or How the Roes are shot at the Breast.) On the right at the beginning of a sloping course the roebuck making the death-bound, the doe behind it looking up surprisedly. On the left within the thicket under a tree the hunter along with the baiting assistant still pointing the gun with outlined line of fire. Wooded scenery, in front right below the roes a water with a dead tree-trunk sunk in. Pen and brown ink and wash. On the subtext mounted on verso inscribed in brown pen: Johan(n) Elias Ridinger inv. et del: 1758-., otherwise as before and following. 214 x 361 mm.

although in regard of the pure image size remaining behind the oblong format of which, namely ca. 5 cm in the height and ca. 4 cm in the width, but like those with 6-line explanation (in German) of the procedure, too:

“ (One takes the outer bark from birches, makes thereon a call of two voices like the doe when it is alarmed for its fawns, but the call must be right far off and pure. Now when in such a place where the roebucks stay in oneself lies in wait, so the latter will appear shortly, especially if the roebuck does not have a doe with it. But the hunter must get very ready for shot for they turn about quickly and abscond if they notice the merest or get wind so that it is need that one take the shooting stand below the wind. For the call could taken also leaves of apple, beech, and pear, but the bark of the birch is the best.) ”

Irrespective of the thematic nearness to the Princely Pleasures worked about 30 years earlier, the drawing obviously not belonged to the extremely voluminous bequest of ca. 1849 drawings J. A. G. Weigel in Leipsic took over in 1830 and enlarged in the following time. Compare hereto both Thienemann pp. 271 ff. and Weigel’s 1869 Catalogue of the Bequeathed Collection of Drawings, pp. 181-231. But neither provable, too, within other renown collections of drawings.

So the fully executed work here obviously was handed over still by Ridinger himself or soon after him. This not least – see below – based on a remarkable presentation. For which also the inscription along with the text should be trimmed and mounted on the back for the purpose of optical adaptation with a pendant regarding the still hunt with the hollow pot which got in here, too, but without any letters.

Thinkable besides their purpose for a series, not brought to an end, of hunting by bait analogous to the Ways to Capture the Wild Animals of 1750. So a further hollow pot in upright format in a Bavarian collection unknown in the graphic œuvre, too.

Such sets of different extent not at all unknown within Ridinger’s drawings and mostly to be proven by same dates, partly even serial numbering, but generally by similar size and same outward creation each time.

It shall be reminded in this connection of the small set Th. 269-271 + 281 within the engraved Wondrous Stags. In respect of their size and arrangement of the figures, also their several frame lines and rounded upper border they form a group for themselves departing from the general picture scheme there as already censured by Thienemann and correspondingly considered in the new editions since Engelbrecht.

Finally relating to Ridinger’s intention explained within his preface to the Princely Pleasures “to show  all  kinds and manners of hunting … also the trace or scent of every game … thus to strive for giving this work a right perfection” that 36-sheet set, so highly important regarding the practice of hunting, at least remained a torso. For only in the course of decades he kept his promise by sets totally differently produced: (Thorough Description and Presentation of the Wild Animals, with the small traces, 1733; Illustration of the Game, with the large traces, 1740; Ways to capture the Wild Animals of 1750, and the Falconry set). The latter two – and all the more Par force Hunt and The Fair Game Hounded by the Different Kinds of Hounds – to mention already only just a bit because their thematic, although not exhaustively, is depicted already in the Princely Pleasures.

In every respect overlooked, however,

Trimmed at the fine border-line in brown ink and, possibly throughout already contemporarily, mounted by old on laid paper with border washed in green and edged by fine lines in brown ink. The drawing additionally lined by a slender streak of gilt paper. The whole mounted anew on laid paper laminated repeatedly which margin has been washed in black. Here three wormholes coming from back. A tender other one only in front and here in the image centre noticeable only a little. An even browness caused by mounting affecting the impression of the image less than giving it rather a very fine authentic patina. Shortly,

Offer no. 28,289  /  price on request

“ ich habe kuerzlich Ihre web site über die Rugendasfamilie gefunden, welche ich von grosser inhaltlicher Qualität und Interesse finde … ”

(Señ. G. E., 19. December 2003)