as together not just as then after all simultanously two of the superbly rare six leaves of Rugendas’ great

used by Ridinger as stimulus for his own “Princely Persons on Horseback”. Completely here not provable in literature anymore, they are nevertheless an extraordinary attractive, quite personal temptation + seduction to achieve the peu à peu completion some day as perhaps then unique and moreover singular. But also in pictorial regard as if framed

the  two  riders  gallop  pendant-like  towards  each  other .

And, even more, in lifetime these two noblemen stood

That is since 1704 in the war of Austria and its allies against France with Bavaria.

“ June 10, (1704, Eugene) … met Marlborough at the Neckar who commanded the English auxiliary forces … Two months later … the two generals defeated the united Frenchmen and Bavarians in the decisive battle near Höchstädt. The capture of Landau, the expulsion of the French from Germany, the occupation of Bavaria by the Austrians were the immediate consequences of the brilliant victory ”

(von Arneth in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, VI, pp. 409 + 411).

And so on. Till the conclusions of peace of Utrecht + Rastatt (1713/14). And in their historic effectiveness surpassing still widely over these. Still 300 years later one thinks of the interplay of their personal bravery as setting standards. So when Eberhard Straub speaks on occasion of the Rheinsberg Prince Heinrich Exposition of Frederick the Great’s

(FAZ August 12, 2002).

Their bold so adequate portraits by hands of the great Rugendas as a contemporary here then qualified by provenience of the portrait collection of father + son von Römer originated in the beginning of the 19^th century that in 1871 devolved upon today’s Museum of the Fine Arts Leipsic and wassold by this in 1924 obviously completely (not only the duplicates as Lugt notes; see auction sale Boerner). Recto lower right its collection stamp “(Municipal Museum at Leipsic)” (Lugt 1669e), on the back the removal stamp “(Disposed by Museum of the Fine Arts Leipsic)” (L. 1669f).

Teuscher states per no. 56 “c. 8 ll.” though she can describe six only (53-58). For the one she carries as 59 as “additional leaf” belongs neither stylistically nor in regard of size and subtext to the set, would even be a repetition of the set-conforming portrait of Eugene here. Insofar she follows Stillfried’s error who incorporated it per 281 into the set not knowing it as Nagler neither. Also her quotation of Boerner there is unfounded as equally referring to 55 here and regarding St. 281 (T. 59/Nagler 8) as reproduction. Ask in this connection for the complete description, please.

In fact, too, the original set should be complete with the six leaves T. 53-58 as it – obviously as the one and only copy! – figured in the aforesaid Boerner sale “Collection of Engravings by Old Masters of the XV^th-XVIII^th Century” as lot 1670 as follows :

Ergo the inbetween dissolved copy von Roemer from the Leipsic Museum to which positions 14,363 + 14,364 here, T. 55 + 58, belonged. Whereby here

at  present  no  complete  copy  is  known  to  literature .

For its proof by Teuscher is now cut into pieces in the light of the above appendix here. And both the further copies in Coburg + Dresden called in there miss that of the Duke of Marlborough (T. 58), temporary Prince of Mindelheim.

Five each Nagler described as single plates and Count Stillfried possessd resp. Both note instead of the true Eugene its reproduction only (N. 8). Thus it should be one and the same copy that Nagler as antiquarian left to his customer. In Augsburg by the way with T. 54 one single leaf of the set only!

That these should be appended by Nagler 7 “Charles XII mounted on horseback with the sword in his hand as he drives the enemies ahead, one of the chief works of the master” as remained unknown to Teuscher seems to be unlikely by stylistic regards though, analogous to T. 53-58 (but not to T. 59!), also described by Nagler as “large folio”. For none of the six confirmed leaves of the set shows a general in contact with the enemy as mentioned for Charles XII as their contemporary. The latter then by the way as the one and only of these large prince leaves among the 27,600 lots of parts I-XXVIII of Weigel’s Art Stock Catalogue (1838/57). Not one concerning T. 53-58! Their, and thereby of the one here, too,

rarity  thus  simply  superb !

And this not only because of special circumstances on the market but generally. Already in 1675 the expert von Sandrart numbered “clean prints” of the velvety mezzotint manner at only c. “50 or 60” (!). “Soon after (the picture) grinds off for it not goes deeply into the copper.” Correspondingly Thienemann in 1856 at the example of Ridinger :

“ The mezzotints are almost not to be acquired on the market anymore …
and the by far larger part (of them) … (I have) only found (in the printroom) at Dresden. ”

Not even there then the older’s Georg Philipp large set of the “Princes on Horseback” as a whole, to which later the equal-named son let follow an own though with 34 x 22 cm visibly smaller one of which Teuscher knows five leaves (429-433) with which T. 59 also not harmonizes. For the time of origin of the large ones by the father T. 53 sees as terminus post quem 1713 as only in that year his Frederick William (I) succeeded as king of Prussia. Since on the other hand Marlborough still figures as Princeps Mindelheimensis what became obsolete in 1714 the origin may be seen accordingly narrow.

While Nagler (1845) does not regard Rugendas as a “great Master in mezzotint” whose “compositions (were) designed full of life and always with genius though” – their first states should carry his “inv. et fec.” as here (later addresses not known here in this connection) or the address of Jeremias Wolff – Gode Krämer (1998) stresses the

“ technique  of  mezzotint  masterly  commanded  by  him ”

and qualifies him as “a that excellent etcher and mezzotint artist” who “in regard of Augsburg early made the mezzotint his own and introduced a new variant with the combiation of the techniques of mezzotint and etching by the outline etching” (in Björn R. Kommer, ed., Rugendas / Eine Künstlerfamilie in Wandel und Tradition / Catalogue to the exhibition 1998, pp. 8 f.).
Offer no. 14,365 / reduced  pendant  price