Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Young Huntresses in the Character of Diana. For once sitting near a tree with cap, holding the rifle in her left, in-between the head of a hound whose lead is hold by the right. At the belt the game-bag. For the other standing at a tree with bonnet, pointing with her left into the landscape while the right holds the rifle and the hound standing to her left looks up at her. 2 sheets. Mezzotints for Gabriel Spitzel (also Spizel, 1697 Augsburg 1760, friend of Johann Elias). Inscribed: Ioh. Elias Ridinger delin. / Gabriel Spizel excud. A.V. 49.6-49.8 x 36.3-36.5 cm.

Neither in Thienemann (1856) , Schwarz (1910) + Wend, Ergänzungen zu den Œuvreverzeichnissen der Druckgrafik, I, 1 (1975) nor in the large stocks of Weigel (1838/57), Coppenrath (1889/90), Helbing (1900) or the rich collections of Schwerdt (1928), Faber-Castell (1958) inclusive of the 23-sheet stock “Engravings not known to Thienemann and Schwarz” there (in 14 lots). Also not in the current further Ridinger collections of quality present here. In this scope thus here not provable, but by theme and size closely connected to items Thienemann 1110 + (Schwarz only) 1448 with their variants 1113/14.

Each with German-Latin quatrain :

From the zenith of the adoration of Diana for Sigrid Schwenk lasting from about 1680 till 1850:

“ Still for the kings and princes who ordered the (baroque) palaces, as for the artists who decorated them

Diana  obviously  was  the  incarnation  of  the  hunt ,

the goddess equally protecting huntsmen and chased game. But sometime she had to make off … (and is) practically without any importance in the scope of today’s hunting. That this was not always so, that the goddess taken over from antiquity once was

in  the  centre  of  German  hunting

–  not  only  with  the  nobility ,

but  also  with  professional  huntsmen  and  forest  keepers  –

we only know from new researches during the last ten years. … What high importance one attached to Diana as protectoress of the hunt, the hunter and the game particularly in the circles of the professional huntsmen and foresters, can be read especially well in an apprentice’s indentures Joseph Reichsgraf von und zu Arco had issued for a hunter righteous to stag and wood on July 23, 1792 ”

(Schwenk, Diana – [An Obituary to the nearly forgotten Goddess of the Hunt], in Blüchel, Die Jagd, vol. I, pp. 210-215).

Of quite even fine, brown-black velvet printing quality full of fine chiaroscuro, the charming impact of the images – sitting in dreamy attitude here, in active position there – finally is not touched by the traces of age inescapably peculiar to the old mezzotints. Trimmed to platemark, on the left to the edge of the image, the sheets are mounted at the four corners as well as on both sides at the centre fold slightly strained-fissured by light bruise. Also else here and there light traces of age and quite weak touch of fox-spots practically noticeable in the white text field only.

“ The mezzotints – Thienemann generally stated already 150 years ago – are almost not to be obtained in the trade anymore … (A)ll produced by and after Joh. El. Ridinger … (are) that rare that they can be found almost only in some public excellent print rooms. I found most of the described ones – thus not the present ones! – only in the famous Dresden cabinet”

(pages VIII + 270).

For only editions of about “50 or 60 clean impression(s)” were practicable for the expert and theorist Joachim von Sandrart. Having given his “Teutsche Akademie” (1675) to the apprentice doubtless was the decisive, lasting merit of the otherwise so meagre master Resch in Ulm. “(A)fterwards, however, the image grinds off soon”.

With the publisher / engraver (?) Spitzel we finally meet that friend of the master who had established the connection to Wolf Baron (so, contrary to Kilian/Thienemann, Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie) von Metternich in Regensburg, where Ridinger then spent his “three decisive years pure and simple … The ‘ad vivum pinxit’ that could stand over all of his painting and is determining for their genious finds the first and at once very far-reaching pre-requisites here” (Wolf Stubbe, Johann Elias Ridinger, 1966, pp. 6 f.).
Offer no. 28,406  /  price on request

“ I have received the copy of Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre … I am very pleased with it. Thank you very much for your help ”

(Mrs. C. C., March 7, 2003)