Cattle by the Crème de la Crème
Wintter, Joseph Georg (1751 Munich 1789). (Animal Pieces after Several Masters etched and published … Court and Hunting Engraver in Munich [1783/]1784.) 7 of 8 sheet of the set of the cattle. Etchings. C. 13 x 18 cm.
Niemeyer 47-53, II; Nagler 12. – From the Augsburg omnibus edition Schwerdt III, 190, a ( “Rare”, 1928 ) published 1821 the earliest and comprising only 44 sheet anymore (of 137, so the here otherwise not provable edition Weigel 21336, of them “Most … very rare”; so also 1863 Nagler, Monogramists III, 68, at the same time emphasizing their beauty) on buff paper, whose marvelous quality of impressions reveals the small editions and had Schwerdt, unaware of the chronological factors, frequently conclude proofs before the letter. – Without the title etching after Johann Heinrich Roos.
- The Pissing Cow and the Two Sheep. Before village silhouette. After Karel Dujardin (Amsterdam 1622 – Venice 1678). C. du hortein. inv. fecit / 2 (in reverse) / JGWintter. feit (sic!). 1783. – The famous sujet. – The wide white margin somewhat fox spotted on two sides.
- The Bony Old Cow to the left, before rotten lying trunk. Before village silhouette. After Dujardin as above. K. du. jardin. inv. / 3 (in reverse) / JGWintter 1784 .
- The Resting Cow at the Fence to the left. With farm silhouette. After Dujardin as above. K. du jardin inv. / 4 (in reverse) / JGWintter Fecit 1784. – In the far wide white lower margin somewhat foxed.
- The Standing and the Resting Cow, each to the right. On a pasture close to the village with the steeple in the background. After Dujardin as above. K. du. jardin inv / 5 / JGWintter sculp 1784.
- The Bull to the right on a Fine Plateau. After Nicolaes Berchem (Haarlem 1620 – Amsterdam 1683). Berchem. inv. / 6 / JGWintter. sculp. 1784.
- The Grazing Cow to the left and the one resting at the fence below a mighty tree, looking at the beholder. With church and the roof of a farm to the right. After Dujardin as above, ringing in the zenith’s abundance of atmosphere . K du jardin inv. / 7 / JGWintter. sculp. 1784.
- The Two Cows lying together amidst painterly hilly landscape. After Jan Both (c. 1615 Utrecht 1652). Both. inv / 8 / JGWintter sculps. 1784. – The splendid finish .
Wintter’s “etchings are excellent and
are in the treatment between those by Hollar and Riedinger .
In 1784 W. became electoral Court and Hunt Engraver” (Nagler) .
At the same time he was member of the electoral academy at Dusseldorf. And 1787 he was promoted court chamber councilor as
rare “ (a)mong those numerous court and independent artists
of the Electoral Palatinate Bavarian court ”
(pope of forest cameralists Wilhelm Gottfried von Moser from the “famous family of cameralists” [Heß in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie] and being born 1729 almost already a representative of the father’s generation), at the same time summing up “Always better than Riedinger”. Which shall not be consented with that generally though. Yet the more so the
“ This man has extraordinary talents ”
as Lorenz von Westenrieder of the same age (b. 1748, theologian, yet especially historian; “has generally a impressionable eye for scenic beauties” [Höhn]) wrote in 1785 to Christian Felix Weisse, friend of Lessing’s and playwright in Leipsic, after he had already highly praised him in his 1783 “Almanac of Human History in Bavaria”.
Exemplary here then his almost complete
rare set of the cattle
as in the small work of this precocious master the only one this kind .
Which evokes what was art-historical conclusion already in 1909 and 1921 resp. So Höhn (Studies on the Development of Munich Landscape Painting from the End of the 18th and the Early 19th Centuries) by his “one of the earliest” among “the early beginnings of Munich Landscape Painting” and Wolf (The Discovery of the Munich Landscape) resp., who documents him by seven etchings.
Offer no. 15,670 / EUR 980. / export price EUR 931. (c. US$ 1267.) + shipping
“ this is to let you know that the book has arrived in excellent shape, and that I am delighted to have it ”
(Mr. P. M., April 30, 2003)