The Advanced Ridinger Collector’s 3rd Part
In the first one the master has instructed us about the growth of one of his exemplary etchings. Has shown to us how such one is by far not ready for the market just because the complete whole of the image already appears on the paper … In the second it was about an author’s copy of the master’s with errata adopted from the preparatory drawings no longer present in the final state , of which he corrected at least one already highly professionally , and furthermore. Both times exquisitely unique for … just the precious hours of intimate exchange with him.
In which he then may confess today, quite confidentially, how he had not quite kept his youthfully hastily given promise of the preface to the Princes’ Hunting Pleasure to show in this “all kinds and manners of hunting”. Sure, the one or other he had supplied subsequently of course , but , but , by no means the for the hunter so existentially important , why , highly interesting theme of the hunt with the mating call !
And then , now whispering , for more than 250 years just only the one or the other collector & dealer – now just that address in Padingbüttel , you’ll know – had known and held exemplarily in hands how it was still graphically on my mind in my late years, towards the end of the 1750s. How I , if I remember correctly ,
in one single case
even had written the comprehensive explanation
to it, yes , yes , just as in umpteen of the engraved/etched sheets which in such a manner served whole generations of brave huntsmen as instructions without any poring over in Döbels & Co., highly welcome in their once 20th century modernity of picture & text at one look.
And even
inscribed & dated it !
So that from time to time a deserving happy one may duplicate how I had taken it into my head for him,
to experience the coming into being of the
Whistling of the Roe
which to publish within a set for Tom , Dick & Jerry
my manifold obligations prevented me as everybody knows .
Thus enjoy this triad of
original drawing – autograph text – inscription
and also don’t miss that in your time at the latest just on its own
such an extensive autograph text , going in medias res
beyond any “just” naming
is an autograph event sui generis .
And drawings accompanied in such a manner are of greatest rarity !
Go on to read for the corset ,
for the detail stuff also we artists keep our philologists …
Missing within the Graphic Œuvre
The Hunt with the Mating Call
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). (To Whistle the Roe! or How the Roes are shot on the Call.) On the right at the beginning of a sloping course the roebuck making the death-bound
– “ … the moments of a flight , a runaway after the shot , and the like
are represented masterly ”
(Franz von Kobell as a “true huntsman” [ADB], 1865) – ,
the doe behind it looking up in surprise. 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 ( sic! ). 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 caption mounted on verso inscribed in brown pen: Johan(n) Elias Ridinger inv. et del: 1758 —., otherwise in German as above and below. 8⅜ × 14¼ in (214 × 361 mm).
Large-sized drawing not executed in copper
thematically complementing the “ Princes’ Hunting Pleasure ”,
although in regard of the pure image size remaining behind the oblong format of which, namely c. 5 cm in the height and c. 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 both the thematic and textual nearness to the Princes’ Hunting Pleasure worked only about 30 years after this, the drawing obviously not belonged to the extremely extensive bequest of c. 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 Catalog of the Bequeathed Collection of Drawings, pp. 181-231 (1869). But neither provable, too, within other renown collections of drawings.
So the fully executed work here seems to have been handed over still by Ridinger himself or soon after him. This not least – see below – supported by a remarkable presentation. For which also the inscription along with the text could have been 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.
Conceivable besides their purpose for a series, not brought to an end, of hunting by bait analogously to the Ways to trap the Wild Animals of 1750. So the said stag drawing illustrates the call of the rutting stag by means of the hollow pot. A theme as it is already known from a drawing in upright format in a Bavarian collection, likewise not known in the graphic œuvre, too, and also without inscription.
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, generally however 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 Most Wondrous Deer. In respect of their size and arrangement of the figures, also their several frame lines and arched upper border they form a group for themselves deviating from the general picture scheme there as already criticized by Thienemann and correspondingly considered in the new editions since Engelbrecht.
Finally relating to Ridinger’s intention explained within his preface to the Princes’ Hunting Pleasure “to show all kinds and manners of hunting … also the track or trace 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 designed partly utterly differently: (Thorough Description and Presentation of the Wild Animals, with the small traces, 1733; Illustration of the Fair Game, with the large traces, 1740; Ways to trap the Wild Animals of 1750, and the Hunters and Falconers set). The latter two – and all the more Par force Hunt and The Fair Game Hounded by the Different Kinds of Hounds – to be mentioned already only just limitedly because their subject, although not exhaustively, is depicted already in the Princes’ Hunting Pleasure.
In every respect overlooked, however,
the so exceedingly charming hunt with the mating call ,
now proven by the drawing(s) here for roebuck baiting (and hollow pot)
originally obviously thought for a greater work .
Trimmed at the fine borderline in brown ink and, quite possibly already contemporarily, mounted by old on laid paper with border washed in green and lined by fine lines in brown ink. The drawing additionally lined by a narrow streak of gilt paper. The whole in its turn mounted on laid paper laminated repeatedly whose margin is washed in black. The inscription mounted on the back – quite top left at the edge of the paper, originally thus on the left directly below the borderline – together with caption with only plain mounting under addition of a further black and omission of the gold lining braided likewise. Within the lining three wormholes coming from back as well as a tender, little perceptible trace only on the front in the image center. An even browness caused by mounting affecting less the effect of the image than rather imparting to it a very fine authentic patina. Shortly,
a drawing worked up for special presentation
documenting Ridinger’s esteem ,
additionally not omnipresent because not engraved .
And , still more , in respect of the practice of hunting
for Ridinger almost a unique of together optical splendor .
Offer no. 29,057 / price on application
„ Wegen der Eile – das Werk soll Anfang nächster Woche verschenkt werden – würden wir Kurierdienst bevorzugen … Der guten Ordnung halber hier unsere Bestätigung, dass Ihr Paket … wohlbehalten bei uns eingetroffen ist … Wir würden die Verpackung ungern öffnen, weil das gute Stück gleich wieder auf Reisen gehen soll … “
(Herr F. R., 29. Aug./2. Sep. 2013)