“(T)he political, economical and cultural Life of
Europe and North America
(influenced by the Reformation).
IT IS SAXONY’S CONTRIBUTION
TO WORLD HISTORY.”
Here now their Visitation of the Church
as the Cause for Luther’s Large + Small Catechism
RIDINGER’S
“Extremely scarce Broadsheet
for the Celebration of the Bicentennial of the Visitation
and
in Remembrance of the 79th anniversary
of the Peace of Westphalia
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Evangelische Kirchen Visitation. View through a curtain hold together at the top by rocaille title-cartouche with palm branches onto a meeting of the consistory with Luther and his sovereign at the center of the assembled secularity and clergy disputing and studying writings under the maxim John V, 39 “Look for in the Book” composed “stage-like in the sense of a closed scene” (Schöne). The inner circle at the table in the center, the outer in a wide semicircle. Between the upper windows of the otherwise covered walls paintings to I Sam. VII, 16 / II Kings 11, 1, 4 + 5 / Matt. IX, 35 / Acts VIII, 14 + Acts XV, 36. Etching by Johann Jacob Kleinschmidt (1687 Augsburg 1772). (1727.) Inscribed in the plate: Elias Riedinger (sic!) delin. / Ioh. Iacob Kleinschmidt Sculpsit, otherwise as above. 23.6 x 31.7 cm.
Provenance
Collection Alfred Coppenrath , Regensburg,
his sale part II (Leipsic 1889), no. 1606
and qualified there as
“ Extremely scarce broadsheet in undescribed state ”,
to the latter see, however, below.
Marsch, (Pictures to the Augsburg Confession and Its Anniversaries), Weißenhorn 1980. – Stillfried (1876) + Schwarz (1910) 1381; Reich auf Biehla 282 ( “Backed. / Interesting sheet … Extremely rare”, 1894 !); Boerner CXXII, 1385 (the copy of Conte Constanza C.....a, Milan, “Utmost scarce”, 1913) + Wend, Additions to the catalogues raissonée of prints, I, 1 (1975), Ridinger 43.
The picture worked within the scope of the “Augsburg Peace Paintings” (1650/51-1789) is meant for the 1728 annual gift. At which the typographic accompanying text “is only glued in many cases” (Gode Krämer; in this manner the copies Stillfried, Schwarz, Faber-Castell), and thus printed separately. The copy of the Augsburg Municipal Art Collections, however, is printed on the back of the etching as probable mark of origin from one of the rare Augsburg omnibus volumes of the set arranged chronologically, but more or less without constraint. So in the first instance by Baumgartner, then by Joh. Michael Roth (1732, a further one with 1749 foreword).
After ending of the Peace Paintings in 1789 Roth then presented the whole set in 1790 at which the pictures up to inclusive of 1731 – as then here, too – were printed onto the backside of the text of the year before. As well in its sequence as in its far more generous typography the 1727 text here diverges from the former Augsburg copy. Larger also the initial, the varying text arrangement besides more restrained ornamental border. From this edition then the copy here should be: the Ridinger/Kleinschmidt engraving to 1728 is found on the back of the text to the “Peace Painting” of 1727. What ever again leads to the wrong judgement as an undescribed proof impression.
Generally by the way not in Thienemann (1856), in Weigel’s Artstock Catalog, parts I-XXVIII (1838-1857), at the Ridinger tycoon Hamminger (1895), in Helbing’s (Ridinger) Catalog XXXIV (1900, 1554 items!) !
Watermark: crown over coat of arms. – In the upper left corner of the broad white margin repaired triangular tear of c. 1-1.5 cm, the upper margin with slim trace of dirt, absolutely smoothed centerfold not visible from the front, otherwise quite untouched. – On the back 2 columns of 50 lines of typographic text :
“ Friedens=Gemähld ,
Der Evangelischen Schul=Jugend in Augsburg , bey wiederholtem
Danck= und Frieden=Fest , den 8. Augusti Anno 1727 ausgetheilet .
Genommen aus der Heil. Schrifft und der Reformations=Historia. ”
Following an outline of the history of the reformation, its spreading over northern Europe and its victims (see the German version for comprehensive quotations).
Besides 79 years Peace of Westphalia the most eminent historical background of the remembrance by the Augsburg Celebration of Peace – and by this cause of the broadsheet – is the bicentennial of
“(the) famous Visitation of the Church in Saxony ,
by which the new Church became really visible ”
(Meyer’s Konv.-Lexikon, 4th ed., IX, 781 + X, 1023) by which all began in 1527 or even 1526 according to newer literature.
Stimulated by Luther and since October 1528 also directed by himself through this visitation
“Saxony is the mother country of the Reformation .
It is SAXONY’S contribution to world history .
The confessional churches emerging from the reformation
– Lutherans , Reformed Church , Anglicans –
and the spiritualistic movements
influenced the political, economical and cultural life in
Europe and North America ”
(Christian Zühlke, Die Reformation in Sachsen, in Von der Liberey zur Bibliothek – 440 Jahre Sächsische Landesbibliothek, 1996, p. 123).
Beyond this the conception of the image discloses Ridinger’s ties to the Netherlandish emblematics as already documented in his earliest works. The curtain in the foreground stands for both the curtain of life as since the middle ages as the symbol of the secret, the mystery, as which we have to understand, e.g., the caesura of the worldly death. And indeed, with Luther and his elector we not only see the thematic central figures, but also deceased ones. Accordingly the windows are draped. The light comes in a figurative sense from above, from the skylights and out of the title-cartouche. In the latter not only the cords of the curtain join, but the palm branches are synonym for the past-mortal, the eternal life.
This then the setting of this in so many regards interesting and rare sheet, engraved instantaneously after Ridinger's drawn model.
Offer no. 28,970 / EUR 670. / export price EUR 637. (c. US$ 856.) + shipping
“ … And I also received your wonderful documents on Charles Le Brun and the other wonderful images including the three-legged deer. Wonderful. Thank you so very much! … ”
(Mrs. S. W., October 21, 2008)