The Heron Hawking

Johann Elias Ridinger (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Heron Hawking. First in open landscape with falcons and eagle owl, mostly on horseback, but also passing the time with cards and dice, waiting for the start of the hunt. Then three falcons acting in the air and two herons, one already attacked. On the ground a further one held by the falcon and approached by a falconer with the lure in the hand. The mostly mounted hunting party observing the scene. 2 sheet. Etchings with engraving by Martin Elias Ridinger (1731 Augsburg 1780). Inscribed: I. and II. resp. / Joh. El. Ridinger ad vivum del. 1749. / qz M. El. Ridinger Filio suo æri incisi,(.) 1777. and 3 quatrains each. 14¼ × 22½ in (36.1-36.3 × 57 cm).

Thienemann & Schwarz 763-764; Weigel, Art Stock Catalog XXVIII/Ridinger (1857), 46A (Old impressions, before B&C, Later ones on ordinary paper and New ones resp.); Silesian Ridinger coll. Boerner XXXIX, 1922 f. (1885; Without plate margin, mounted. Very rare & Fine new impressions); Without margin 1890 at Wawra in Vienna within a fine collection of drawings and prints of Joh. El. Ridinger’s; Th. Reich auf Biehla 156 (1894; the Silesian copy as above as Exceedingly rare old impressions); Gg. Hamminger Coll. 1727 (1895; Superb impressions with full margin); Helbing XXXIV, Arbeiten von J. E. und M. E. Ridinger, 1331 (1900; excellent old impressions with full margin with ill. of both; supposedly the Hamminger copy); Schöller Coll. 530 ( Exceedingly scarce companion pieces [1921] in splendid impression ); Schwerdt III (1928), 143 (only with tiny margin around the platemark); Alexander Count of Faber-Castell 54 (1958; Excellent prints with very wide margins).

on the full sheets – on the left both the two tiny holes of the genuine first stitching – of the heavy WANGEN laid paper of the Loth dynasty on the Lotten mill at Nieder-Wangen on the Argen as preferred by the Ridingers, but without discernible watermarks with margins of laterally 2⅝-3⅜ (6.8-8.5) & top/bottom including original deckle edge 3⅛-3⅞ in (7.8-9.8 cm), resulting in a paper size here of 20⅞-21¼ × 28⅝-28¾ in (53-54 × 72.8-73 cm).

For these companion pieces downright a gold standard, see exemplarily above. For Hamminger’s “with full margin” were for all practical purposes – his copy was traded here into a prime public collection – margin widths of ¾-1 in (2-2.5 cm), that is a paper size of merely 16⅛ × 24⅜ in (41 × 62 cm)! And this was his only one! Sudden light for the scarcity of these companion pieces the fact that, contrary to myriads of other Thienemann numbers frequently owned umpteen times, this market sweeper of his day, driven by untiring improvement of quality, could acquire this set in just one and only copy!

And present copy been embedded – see the remaining guards on the left side – in others like it. Up to superior printing quality, freshness and preservation!

What perforce amounts to a genuine supply source.

And just as with previous top items of prime addresses presenting themselves uniformly the Ridingers themselves had to be targeted as assured, so with present Œuvres de Ridinger everything suggests their Paris agent, the art dealer Gilles Rosselin.

Only faintly perceptible, very very early smoothed down centerfold before unfolded binding with about late 18^th/early 19^th cent. Remaining outside the platemark faint large dog-ear top right. A faint touch of browning along the left platemark from top to the middle of the 1^st sheet continues slightly intensified in the 2^nd one, touching also the wide white margin as a whole, from the middle to the bottom. The slight tearedness of the right-hand lower edge of the laid paper of sheet I backed acid-freely. Marginalia of these

companion pieces belonging to the finest top class Ridingeriana.

Offer no. 16,316 | price on application