Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767) + Georg Adam Eger (? Murrhardt 1727 – 1808). Two etchings from Ridinger’s Par Force Hunt of the Stag in their pure image size printed on grounded sheet zinc, executed as oil paintings in the colours of Hesse-Darmstadt by Eger or his circle, possibly partially under use of tempera. Ca. 3^rd quarter of the 18^th century. 26.2 x 47.2 cm. In green-bright gold frame.

Thieme-Becker, Eger, X, 369; Siebert, Kranichstein, (Hunting Seat of the Landgraves of Hesse-Darmstadt); Hofmann, (Guide through the Hunting Museum Kranichstein Castle Darmstadt); erlebnis ridinger 69 with ills.

(The Relays Are Set Out by the Commander of the Hunt)
Thienemann 53. – Sheet 5 of the set, together title sheet of its second part. – “To keep order with this number of humans and animals … exact places have been assigned by the most noble leaders of the hunt where the relay horses, the different braces of dogs, together with their mounted leaders, should stop. Our sheet is filled with such troops partly stopping, partly moving ahead in divisions. The stewards are busy quite in front.”
Offer no. 28,044  /  price on request

(The Stag Turns to Bay in the Water, the Hounds are Ceased and He Receives the Coup de grâce)
Thienemann 61. – Sheet 13 of the set, together title sheet of its fourth and last part. – “The whole party has assembled around the water.”
Offer no. 28,045  /  price on request

whose uniforms are “designed in the colours of the landgraves, later grand-dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt. Especially by Georg Adam Eger … there exist a couple of hunting paintings that correspond almost up to details with your colours”. Engaged as Court Hunting Painter in Darmstadt in 1748, already in 1750 Louis VIII entrusted him with a journey at the court in Vienna “to present an artistic clock to Mary Theresa. After (Johann Christian) Fiedler’s death in 1765 title of a second court painter … Most talented court hunting painter. Representations (especially) of the par force hunt and the Dianaburg” (Siebert). And further

“ The true painter of the par force hunt in Kranichstein only becomes Adam Georg Eger … Louis VIII (1691 Darmstadt 1768, ruling since 1738, ”the greatest nimrod of his time“, Hofmann) must have esteemed Eger quite a lot, wished to have him as steady companion on the hunt and commissioned him with a court hunting uniform to put him on a par with the huntsmen, also called him intimately ‘his old mate’. Eger’s paintings were frequently copied in the rare manner of glass pictures by another Hesse-Darmstadt hunting painter, Nikolaus Michael Spengler, certainly on the request of the landgrave. ”

By the latter, too, then assumedly the “glass picture of a Hunt with Hawking Birds (as) a copy after Ridinger”. The connection to the Ridingers, however, existed – presumably at least initiated with by Joseph Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt as Prince Bishop at Augsburg from 1740-1768 – from the side of Eger after whose designs Martin Elias (Thieme-Becker erroneously “Joh. El.”) worked seven engravings, that is Th. 318/319 (as the only ones of these with also fatherly reference, “direxit et excud. Aug. Vind.”), 339, 340, 352, 373 + 1378. Whereby the matter not nearly rests. For inclusive of five sheets of the afore-mentioned group at least 13 works – Th. 292, 297, 299, 300, 305, 318, 319, 332, 339, 340, 342, 356, 1378 and by this most of those that can be attributed by name – are dedicated to Louis VIII and his reign, six of these worked completely by Johann Elias alone and one together with Martin.

Still not discussed out and rather supposedly unfounded, however, it may in this connection finally be reminded of Brieger’s hint according to which Ridinger had been

“ constantly on the road from one court to the other, from one hunting seat to the other in Germany to glorify the respective hunting master in his triumph about a stag of fourteen points a little in the style of historically memorable events ”

(Das Genrebild, 1922, page 165).

The discussion of this close contact is important for both the artistic as also the chronological classification of the present sheet-metal paintings. For microscopical examinations on the basis of picture Thienemann 61 in both the Regional Museum Bonn and the Municipal Art Collections Augsburg – repeated thanks for this to Mrs. Kalus and Mr. Beier – have revealed unobjectionably that the painting was not effected on mounted impressions on paper, for which according to the kind information of the paper restorer of the Art Museum Bonn, Mrs. Büttner, sheet-zinc would not be suitable just for pure technical reasons, the plates, however, show in every detail the full image part of the engravings, they thus must be, as known as quite possible, direct impressions from the original plates onto the grounding of the plate-zinc. This, however, inevitably requires the co-operation of the Ridingers, as given by the afore-mentioned close connection.

The background of such a treatment being beyond the daily scope is set by the according habits of Louis VIII. His imaginativeness, however, was proverbial.

“ Again and again (he) invented new equipment and tools for the hunt … He owned game transport carriages and mobile hunting-lodges which could be heated. Furthermore carriages with swivel-chairs to be able to shoot to all sides. Besides vehicles, too, on which one sat astraddle on a centre part covered with leather and which had a compartment for the hounds at the rear end ”

(Hofmann p. 8).

And for instance the name of his own hound Cesar portrayed almost in life-size by Zacharias Sonntag had to be set in brass letters onto the painted splendid collar. In this context it should also be thought of that small stool in the hunting parlor in Kranichstein with its four leather-bound volumes “whose title is ‘Voyage des Pays bas’. This ‘Voyage through the Netherlands’ turns out to be a room toilet though”. Also the bedrooms there “– one may hear and be amazed – had already in the year 1568 its own toilet each what was barely imaginable for those days” (Hofmann pp. 11 + 13).

This outright court-specific inventive frame not least filled by the sheet-metal painting under Louis VIII, too. Its function was manifold. For once it was meant to capture oddnesses of the hunt itself in picture and explaining text, thus analoguesly to Ridinger’s engravings of the Wondrous Stags, Th. 242 ff., or the Special Events and Incidents at the Hunt, Th. 343 ff., whereby it may be regarded as possible that this sort of representation is based on mutual fructification. For both Ridinger sets correspond chronologically with the habits at Darmstadt. Whereby the latter also included in the painting the hunting setting as hunting-lodges and the like as memories worth to be remembered. For Darmstadt this is documented not just at all, but by a very early model. That is that hunting sketchbook preserved in the palace museum there that recorded such incidents in verse and image since 1742, first in loose sheets before being bound in 1751 :

“ In this book there is a large number of mostly unusual hunting events set in verses (these by the forester Johann Christoph Rautenbusch) and furnished with pictures, whereby date and place are not missing … The coloured illustrations were delivered by the landgrave’s hunting painters, predominantly surely Eger … They also seem to have been frequently model for painted metal plates one intended to mount at the respective place in wood or field. Many of these delightful plates have been collected in the museum after one has brought them out of the forests again at the beginning of (the 20^th) century to preserve them ”

(Siebert pp. 90 ff. and, in respect of the same for buildings, 82).

And equally Hofmann pp. 8 f.:

“ This was only possible because a large number of painters belonged to (Louis’) hunting suite who had to record in picture all events that happened during stalking or the par force hunts … Thereby, just as with the small stag portraits, such painted on sheet-metal catch our eyes. These all are items that had been mounted in the wood at poles where the depicted stag had been shot, where previously a hunting-lodge had been or where a remarkable event deserved to be handed down to future generations. ”

Not enough with this, however, for, so Hofmann at the same place and p. 13 resp.,

“ To many … relatives and his high-ranking friends, as the emperor in Vienna, too, he sent copies of the already mentioned (tinny) stag portraits (just as we send photographs today) to report what hunting luck Diana has blessed him with. ”

And

“ always it is an evidence of how far the Hesse-Darmstadt hunt spread its message into the country and gave spurs to its artists for high performances for about 1750 (besides the portrait court painters) no less than 4 court hunting painters were employed permanently. ”

Coinciding with this environment the painting over, executed likewise on plate-zinc, from Ridinger’s Par Force Hunt, which originally should have been done as complete set of all 16 stations and quite singularly corresponding with Louis’ predilections.

Shining in local colours, dark in the wood parts, the palette is visibly co-determined by the graphic design. The unsigned works of Eger and his assistants moreover, so Judge Wolfgang Weitz, formerly with the Stiftung Hessischer Jägerhof, largely not to be distinguished from each other. Dr. Gode Krämer, Emeritus Curator for paintings at the Augsburg Art Collections, sees the chronological scope from end of 18^th to early 19^th century to which the considerations here ensue.

Centre piece of these remains the nexus cultivated between Eger and the Ridingers whereby of the latter both Johann Elias himself as partially with the works referring to Louis – here plate inscriptions from already 1753, Th. 299 f. – as also Martin Elias, passed away 1780, are suitable as engravers of Eger’s designs. They relate to the sets of the Wondrous Stags (1768) and the Special Incidents and Events at the Hunt (1779), both closed/published posthumously by the sons (Johann Jakob’s death 1784 would surely be the latest date on the side of the Ridingers), among these with Th. 373 one of 1775, as well as the special position Th. 1378. For in regard of the drawings also the set of 1779 relies beside Eger completely or at least quite predominantly upon Johann Elias deceased 1767 the actual co-operation affects the years before 1768. That is also true for Th. 1378. Belonging to the complex of the Princely Persons on Horseback it shows Louis VIII deceased 1768 as whose painter also Eger still signs. But after the death of Louis this one, so the biographic appendix in Siebert, p. 109, shall have been “supposedly dismissed and provable once again in Schwäbisch Hall in 1779” where he was probably in the employ of the princes of Hohenlohe. For the latter Th. 352 + 373 as painted by Eger with stag trophies of Louis Frederick Charles Prince of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein from 1763 and 1775 resp. may stand as secured, perhaps, too, Th. 353 and also those mentioning only Martin Elias as engraver, but not the draughtsman.

The frugal regime of Louis IX (1768-1790), who especially abolished, too, “the hunting nonsense that became a habit under the reign of his father” (Meyer), though on the other hand surrounded himself with artists and poets, gives indeed reason for Eger’s dismissal. However, in the text – p. 73 – Gisela Siebert also reminds of a later Darmstadt stag, that is the one caught in the mill-creek of the mill in Eschollbrück in 1776 as “painted likewise by Eger and then engraved in copper with extensive description (at least not within Thienemann 343-388 and also not in Schwarz’s topographical Ridinger index) and circulated”. Generally judge Weitz not likes Eger to be regarded as completely disappeared from the horizon, against what already the knowledge of his year of death talks, and reminds especially of the preserving devotion towards cultural objects of the hunt pushed ahead with verve in the first decade under the grandson-successor Louis X (as grand-duke, since 1806, Louis I). Just as, too,

“ (the) later successors (of Louis VIII have) preserved … these things in the 19^th century with the inclination to collect obliged to their age. This way a plenty of hunting-historical news has come down to us, not of general kind, but

ordered  by  the  masters  themselves ,

whose  time , customs  and  practices  they  portray  … ”

They are

“ mirror of a baroque zest for living to whose exhibition the chased game is just the cause … This is the foil before which one has to see the numerous representations of the par force hunt in Kranichstein. Also the fact that one has recorded it that frequently, that one kept court hunting painters for this purpose, is part of this courtly representation ”

(Siebert pp. 33 + 56 f.).

And from this spirit the two present plates originate as together

most  exquisite  Ridingeriana

as Ridinger besides – virtually as a further scent to the history of origins of the present ones – generally enjoyed greatest esteem at the Darmstadt court. So Hofmann pp. 12 f. in regard to Kranichstein:

“ This hallway … got a quite special designation in the last years. All hunters who concern themselves with the tradition of their profession strive to purchase engravings … by Joh. Elias Ridinger. He has created various sets which represent a great value today. The most important one is that of the ‘Wondrous Stags’. It shows about 90 of the ‘horned’ that have been shot by noble men in their estates. Here in Kranichstein alone 12 such trophies have been preserved … To these are now added the engravings by Ridinger. Here thus succeeded what elsewhere seems barely possible, to personify the stag that impressive that it now must appear to us as housemate … A Ridinger room presents several engravings which have nothing in common with the ones already mentioned (afore). ”

Last link of all these aspects finally the attribution of the par force hunt as one in every regard differentiating work to the late period by Rolf Biedermann (Catalogue Augsburg 1967, 3^rd page of the introduction) :

“ In the course (of his) activity as engraver Ridinger changed his principles of creation with continuing maturity in the sense of a more uniform image effect. That can be shown at two thematically similar examples: conveys the set ‘The Princely Hunting Pleasure’ created 1729 in the landscape details a comparably torn general aspect that shows a set off of darker from light parts throughout without differentiation of the foreground, middle distance and background values, so in the set ‘The Par Force Hunt of a Stag’ to be dated about 30 years later the consistency of the image field achieved by uniform light effect and greater equalization of the tone values prevails. Added to this a deep spatial formation of the landscapes and a closer clamping of the figure compositions. ”

Dated preparatory drawings proven for 1746-1753, of the engravings two inscribed with 1756. This thus then the time in question. And whoever may have had the idea of a painterly version of this set or the wish for such one, the chronological coincidence harmonizes vastly.

The condition of the images all around fine. The certain granularity to the opinion of the concerned restorers either traces of oxidation of the plates or resulting from their roughening for better adhesion, but not endangering the painting. Also the varnish shall be healthy. In short ,

For already the just 50-year-old had “nevermore believed that (he) would take the brush once more” as he expressed with letter of June 29, 1748, towards Wille in Paris, together complaining that he could not avoid to accept a correspondingly renewed desire of Catherine the Great for four further oils in St. Petersburg.

“ The map was packaged very well and I am impressed about your professionally too. I look forward to having business with you again ”

(Sign. S. B. F., June 26, 2004)