Deutsch
“ New York Emil Seitz Broadway No. 413 ”
THE IMPERIALS
Here then
in their most elitist , worldwide unique state
Unrivaled – Unrepeatable
Johann Elias Ridinger (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). The Par Force Hunting of a Stag and how He is bagged. / How the Wild Boar is hunted and couped de grâce. 2-plate set. Copper-printing-plates in reverse. Inscribed: Johann Elias Ridinger inven. fecit et excud Aug. Vind(el)., otherwise in German-Latin parallel text as before and addressed as below. 54.1-54.6 x 75.6-75.8 cm.
The optically excellently preserved
original printing-plates
to the mixed technique of etching and engraving as typical for Ridinger and his age to Thienemann (“so one cannot admire these master pieces enough”) + Schwarz 67-68 and Schwerdt III, 135 (“… of the largest and most artistic plates engraved by Ridinger himself”)
in the reddish golden brilliance
of their 260 years old copper .
Most precious, worldwide unique collection object of degree, traced back here far beyond Thieme-Becker (vol. XXVIII, 1933, p. 308) seamlessly directly into the master’s estate itself while deemed lost by Thienemann still in 1856. For already in general
“ Preserved original 18th century printing-plates
are of great rarity ”
(Stefan Morét in Ridinger Catalogue Darmstadt, 1999, pp. 62 f. See also the plates there I.13, I.8 + I.11, color ills. 6 + b/w ills. pp. 63 f.).
And especially on Ridinger’s :
“ Of the high technical and qualitative standard of the works of Ridinger and his sons collaborating in the workshop especially as engravers the (only very partially) preserved printing-plates bear witness still today. ”
In the same sense then already before Bernadette Schöller in “[The Cologne Print Market at the Time of Václav Hollar]” within [Václav Hollar – The Cologne Years] ed. by Werner Schäfke, Cologne 1992, p. 19:
“ The copper-plates
which on the basis of both their material value
and the working times invested therein , too ,
enjoyed a far higher esteem
than , e.g., a preparatory drawing handled only too often disrespectfully … ”
As then elsewhere, too: “The Nuremberg publisher Frauenholz was so taken with this work that he acquired the plate from Reinhart (1761-1847) for a considerable sum” (Teeuwisse III [2007], 29).
And quite concretely Cornelis Koeman in Atlantes Neerlandici II (1969), pp. 138 + 345:
“ One of the most dramatic events in the early history of commercial cartography in Amsterdam was the sale of Jodocus Hondius, Jr.’s copper-plates to Willem Jansz. Blaeu in 1629, the year of his death. At least 34 plates, from which Jodocus II had printed single-sheet maps for his own benefit, passed into the hands of his great competitor. Immediately after that, his brother, Henricus, and Joannes Janssonius (brother-in-law of the latter) ordered the engraving of identical plates. ”
Whereby the communicated process of this order documents
the whole value of copper-printing-plates
once more :
The placing to the engravers Evert Symontsz. Hamersvelt and Salomon Rogiers by notarial act laying down the completion of now 36 plates within 18 months, worked “accurately and finely, yes, finer and better and not less in quality than the maps given to the engravers. The principals will pay to the undertakers 100 carolus guilders for each engraved plate and will also pay the copper itself and the polishing. Five hundred guilders will be paid in advance in order to afford the undertakers to pay the labourers.” Regarding the inclusion of independent temporary engravers as obviously usage the principals “will during the said period not be allowed to employ any of the following (seven) engravers … or any one else who should be employed by the undertakers, with excemption of (two ones). If Salomon Rogiers (obviously specialized letter engraver) came to die within the aforesaid period, it will be up to Evert Symontsz to decide if he wants to stop or to continue with the work, by lack of a good letter engraver. If Evert Symontsz came to die (prematurely) … Salomon Rogiers is forced to complete the task, provided that more time will be available for him.”
As we visualize these informative details the plates inevitably gain in additional intimacy. Telling of pressures and time-need if co-players did an unexpcted clever move which could become commercially threatening, whereby term of delivery and considered number of engravers illustrate abruptly the advantage of the competition. And just the pure labor value of such a plate pointed out with already above by Bernadette Schöller, here multiplied by a degree of accuracy of a map transfer with its, not at least and specially, see above, infinite local inscriptions! As said, truly dramatic.
Yet in the case here, remember, regarding nevertheless always only reproduction plates. What an artistic and therewith timeless factor determines the value then only there, where the genius of the artist himself draws the lines, leads the needle, strengthening the intensity of the etching there and taking it back here, imposing the own vision upon the copper! Here + today then in such a manner Ridinger plates!
And so it was said then here also on occasion of the reappearance of parts of the so-called Thieme-Becker block of Ridinger’s printing-plates – their genesis then could be researched here down to the Ridinger estate – “One of the most sensational discoveries of art history … Ridinger’s original printing (sic!!!) plates”. That the ones here are
worked by the master himself alone
shall be mentioned expressly. Just as then documented by the above inscription, too.
For both Thienemann and Schwerdt they are
“ the largest and supposedly most beautiful as well
Ridinger has delivered …
so that one cannot praise these masterpieces enough .”
Beside the imperial privilege entry they show by the way on occasion of new prints as the only ones of the plates known here additionally three posthumous 19th century publishers/printer addresses, including as quite fascinating
“ New York Emil Seitz Broadway No. 413 ” !
Correspondingly with the information of the heirs these pendants had been brought back from America by their ancestor for a co-production. Thienemann (1856) had thought them lost like further preserved ones.
Their attribute as “the largest” is to be supplemented to the effect that Schwerdt III, 149 records as to be called a rarissimum a Saint Hubert after Caspar Sing which with 85 x 61.8 cm indeed surpasses present Imperials, though having only Ridinger’s, at least, publisher’s “excudit“, yet should be from his own hands. With 75.5 x 91.8 cm sheet size here actually the most monumental sheet of the œuvre, though still engraved by third party, is, however, the early “Siege and Conquest of Halicarnassos” (Th. 917) from the Alexander cycle. But in their artistic and
as one ( !! ) plate works
additionally technical dash
the pendants
reckon to the most beautiful hunting pictures
among the hunting prints of all times pure and simple .
At the same time after abolishment of the par force hunt they are the final graphical representation of that hunting-historical zenith.
“ By their style they should have been created at the end of the 40s … Both … are repeatedly named in literature as the most perfect works by Ridinger ”
(Rolf Biedermann in the 1967 Augsburg Ridinger Catalog, no. 67). And so they stand here then in their
incomparably precious
original copper – printing – plates
for the unison
of wealth + copper .
Is the one not imaginable without the other , so it takes the former for the possession of present museal plates. By this then, to the annoyance of all the egalité envy,
a truly incomparably
tremendously royal collection item
of concurrently, it may be repeated, highest (con)evidence value for the artistic process of creation, quite in the meaning of that postulate of Benn’s back “to the sources , to the mothers” in the succession of Dante, Goethe, Kierkegaard or Nietzsche.
Sheltered from tarnishing by fine application of varnish
the copper-printing-plates, whose paper impressions through the times were and are rare, are generally printable in the ordinary course of their use during the times. They are offered and sold as works of art and objects of collecting, however. Hence without prejudice to their final printing quality. As
a flagship of actually American volume
– as ONE-plate works together monuments of themselves –
these copper-printing-plate pendants boggle about any imagination of what even most fastidious collectors deem possible objectwise. It is the chance of that kind of category qualified by an international publisher on another occasion :
“ It’s always breathtaking again what you can offer . ”
Proposed to you after all with the recommendation of a timeless-elegantly frameless hanging (fittings included) for that you will experience the reflection of the respective light to the fullest.
And what said private Ridinger plate purchasers generally ?
“ You have surprised me ”,
so a retired presiding judge purchasing two of these cimelies
of which he had impressions been done
(see Ridinger catalogue Darmstadt, 1999, I.10 + I.12).
“ I would like to thank you ,
the plates are more beautiful than I had expected ,
I take both , no question ”,
so an entrepreneur who in the meantime bought three further ones.
“ … and I know the plate will only gain in value ”,
so an American purchaser.
And in 2001 the Augsburg Art Collections presented the acquired 12-plate set for the Paradise suite
within the exposition “KUNSTREICH” as the important acquisitions of the last decade
(catalogue KUNSTREICH no. 102, pp. 198-201).
Finally to complement all facts above by a comparison of the valuations once and now as possible on the basis of the said map-plates proves to be both interesting and informative:
In 1630 Hondius-Janssonius paid said 100 guilders (in the Northern Netherlands of the 17th/18th centuries 20 stuivers came on one guilder and 16 pennies on a stuiver) for the engraving of each single map-plate additionally to the copper itself and its polishing. Compared with this in 1670 the publisher’s price for Joan Blaeu’s 12 and 11-volume resp. Atlas Maior from the 1660s with its about 600 (sic!) maps – Le Grande Atlas as the most exciting atlas event of all times published in a total edition of just under 1000 copies – made in its standard edition in decorated vellum and colored in outline only just 450 and 430 resp. guilders! Nevertheless inevitably meant only “for a small circle of customers … (for the) requirement of representation of rich merchants and shipowners”. For a normal daily earnings made in the thought span of time 1 guilder on the flat country of the west, in the south + east only between ½ + 1 guilder. For specialists a little more, for farm hands somewhat less. And in the cities about the double.
For the early 1970s Traudl Seifert, then keeper of the map division of the Bavarian State Library, figured for the Atlas Maior in the standard edition a shop price of about 150 thousand German marks. On a 1984 auction sale an 11-volume copy estimated irrespectively of 5 missing maps at 250 thousand was paid with totally 347700 DM. A rise to 80760% from the publishing on 300 years ago! Which on their part already date back two decades!
Analogously to this the 100 guilders costs for engraving per each plate in 1630 would have been multiplied about just the 807fold to 80760 DM and 41292 EUR resp. per 1984, one DM put roughly on a par with a guilder, freely granting this to be so. Yet, surely, but only, requiring alone skilled ability.
(Basing on Koeman, as above; Traudl Seifert, Der Atlas major des Joan Blaeu, in Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel, Frankfort edition of February 25, 1975; and statistic sources.)
And so the most elitist frequently still is the most economy-priced one .
Offer no. 14,930 / price on request
– along with said frameless hanging equipment –