Hunting Travel Recollections
The Serbian Trumpeter
Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). In the Year 1728. His High Princely Serene Highness Carl Alexander Duke of Wurttemberg has shot this Stag in a Hunt at Barackin in the Kingdom of Serbia. Rolled-on photograph by Johann Laifle (ascertainable as active Regensburg 1865 – about 1900). (1865.) Inscribed: Joh. El. Riedinger (sic!) del. sculps. et excud. Aug. Vind., otherwise in German as above & on the mounting carton: 13. / Photographirt von J. Laifle. / Verlag von A. Coppenrath in Regensburg. Size of photo 6½ × 5⅛ in (16.5 × 13.1 cm), of carton 12⅞ × 10 in (32.8 × 25.4 cm).
“ The strong antlers bowed at the end
end in the shape like a trumpet . ”
Sheet 13 of the 50-sheet Laifle set published in 5 numbers as plate 9 of the Most Wondrous Deer, Thienemann 251. The bibliographical literature only records the 1st number of the album. – Cf. the illustration in the exhibition catalog Johann Elias Ridinger, National Museum Kielce/Poland, 1997, no. 99. – On paper coated with the white of egg, that is
albumen print “ of high gloss … (which) renders the most minute details ”
(Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 4th ed., XIII [1889], page 17, yet recording it as standard a quarter of a century later only). This in contrast to the previously common papers coated with starch, hence resulting in a dull image effect, which consequently could not meet the standards of the great Ridinger collector Coppenrath. And Danuta Thiel-Melerski 2006:
“ The first photographs on albumen paper were so thin
one had to glue them onto cardboard ”
As here then, too. By Johann Laifle’s “Photographic Institute for Portraits and Landscapes” at Klarenanger No. 2 in Regensburg. His Ridinger Album. A Collection of the Finest and Rarest Deer and Roebuck Abnormities photographed from the Original Engravings – complete showcase copy available here – supposedly representing both Laifle’s earliest group of works as also
the earliest Ridinger photographicum
in general. In short ,
the youthful photography is enthusiastic about Ridinger
and therewith bestows a collection enrichment of the most charming kind . Up to the spot on the wall !
Of significantly more comprehensive sets announced by two competitors between 1867 and 1873/75 nevertheless 24 and 48 sheet resp. seem to have been realized only and therefore take second place to Coppenrath’s pioneer edition not just chronologically. In such a manner Laifle & Coppenrath not only were the first to pay their photographic reverence to Ridinger, rather this even in virtually chronological setting as
incunabula of photography !
Laifle’s late period documented here besides by a “Portrait Postcard System Laifle.” from 1899, by which individual portrait photographs were applied to Laifle’s landscape postcards. Laifle won medals at the World Exposition Vienna 1873 & 1876 in Munich.
Offer no. 15,681 / EUR 98. (c. US$ 118.) + shipping
also see
Hermann Menzler’s scenically varying
simultaneous tinted lithograph
as of pictorially quite distinct charm
„ danke für ihre sendung (Hogarth’s Superstition in Heath-Abdruck), die mich in bestem zustand erreicht hat. große freude, gefällt mir sehr gut … mit freundlichen sammlergrüßen “
(Herr W. K., 7. August 2015)