The Asian or Axis Deer

Ridinger, Martin Elias (1731 Augsburg 1780). On this sheet are presented a couple illustrations of Asian deer which are strange to look at for their regular kind of spots, their basic color is reddish brown … They have, however, many things in common with (fallow deer) and our wild deer, also propagate their kind in Europe, therefore they are also kept by grandseigneurs in pleasure gardens, for difference and according to the country’s habits one uses to call the stag the Axis buck and ditto deer, have drawn such from life in 1774. Stag + deer, both with collar, that of the latter one with monogram B(D?)TOH ( HOHENLOHE ? ), in park with outside staircase, column of water etc. Etching with engraving. Inscribed: XXIX. / M. E. Ridinger, sc. A. V., otherwise in German as before. 13¼ × 9¾ in (33.5 × 24.8 cm).

Thienemann + Schwarz 372; Niemeyer, Ridinger Erlebnisse 1698-2020, 2021, p. 181 & ill. p. 183; Silesian Ridinger collection at Boerner XXXIX, 1881 (“Extremely rare”, 1885); Reich auf Biehla Collection 115 (“Extremely rare”, 1894); Helbing XXXIV, Arbeiten von J. E. und M. E. Ridinger, 888 (“Extremely rare”, 1900). So then also

Sheet XXIX of the 46-sheet set To the Special Events and Incidents at the Hunt (“The rarest set of Ridinger’s sporting line engravings”, Schwerdt 1928 ) etched exclusively by Martin Elias after predominantly his father’s designs and concluded in 1779.

At which not only after realization here Martin Elias’ impact on the Ridinger œuvre is much larger than that of an engaged co-worker as engraver only. Already at an age of thirty he just acted as a spiritus rector behind the scene ensuring that sets were completed or, as here, published posthumously.

And as Wolf Stubbe (Joh. El. Ridinger, 1966, pp. 16 f. + pl. 34), going in medias res, celebrates Th. 722, The Wild Buffalo and the Crocodile, from the Fights of Killing Animals as an artistic zenith of the late work in respect of its luminous efficiency, he pays tribute together, because judging by the plate, not the drawing, to Martin Elias as the etcher/engraver of that work. An aspect illustrating deeply the Ridinger teamwork.

Rare representation

criticized by Thienemann as “rather rough and stiff … the father would have presented them differently”.

“ The Axis lives in the plains of East India and on the neighboring islands, wandering about at night in strong herds

and is an object of most eager hunting .

“ Of the (Indian) splendour prevailing in these parts, there are no stronger marks, than the extensive forests, in which are shut up untamed beasts of the grandest kind. A spacious wood, in which numerous unfailing springs give cheerfulness to the scenery, is selected, encompassed with a wall, and interspersed with towers for the reception of the hunters … ”

(Curtius Rufus, Alexander the Great, London 1809, vol. II, p. 213).

He becomes completely tame, and propagates over here, too … ”

(Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 4^th ed., VIII [1888], 565/I with ill.).

Martin Elias might have seen the axis all the more in a Hohenlohe park as Georg Adam Eger (1727 Murrhardt 1808), acquainted to him already from the latter’s days at Darmstadt, seems to have been in service there during the ’70s. Stag & deer of an axis are to be found, too, on Willem Frederick van Royen’s fine Berlin oil The Menagerie of Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg of 1697 at the Hunting Seat Grunewald (for ill. cf. Bol, Holländische Maler des 17. Jhdts., 1969, pp. 289 f.).

Originating from the omnibus volume of the old estate of a nobleman, here then

marvellous in their warm chiaroscuro

of the wide-margined impression with watermark WANGEN as one of Ridinger’s preferred firm laid paper qualities

with the Roman number

(“If they are missing, so this indicates later impressions”, Th.). – In the left white margin fold & little stitching holes from former binding.

The set itself “arranged almost throughout so that always two by two harmonize with each other and form pendants, just as they have been sold in pairs, too” (Th.).

Offer no. 15,719 | EUR 1500. | export price EUR 1425. (c. US$ 1531.) + shipping

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