Acted  as  a  Model  for  the  “Blue  Rider”  Franz  Marc

Ridinger, Johann Elias (Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767). Pine Marten. A young one looking down from a branch to its mother bringing a bird. Etching + engraving. (1740.) Inscribed: J. E. R. fec. / N. 86., title in German as before. 18.5 x 14.6 cm.

Thienemann + Schwarz 476. – Sheet 86 from Design of Several Animals ( “These sheets are much wanted and often copied”, Th. 1856 ). – Marvellous, wide-margined impression of the 1^st edition and

of 1911, Hoberg-Janssen 144 with illustration.

As inspired by Ridinger known hitherto only Marc’s woodcut “Riding School after Ridinger” of 1913 (Lankheit 839) as detail interpretation of the mounted rider as background figure of the third sheet, Th. 608, of the 1722 Riding School annotated by literature with

(Christian von Holst, Franz Marc – Pferde, 2003, pp. 166 ff. inside of [‘… the Kick of my Horses’]).

For already his oil “Playing Weasels” worked two years before reveals the knowledge of quite several Ridinger coppers from entirely different sets. Marc shows two weasels, of which the one, bowed over a bough, looks down upon the other sitting in raised attitude. The trees besides of an eccentricity as in this ostensible density used by him only still on the two “Acts under Trees”, H.-J. 143, of the same year. For the thematic primer detonation stands Ridinger’s small sized sheet “The Weasels”, Th. 479, as sheet 89 of the set here. Also here two playing ones, but both on the earth in completely different surroundings. The latter Marc splitted up. And took the attitude of the two animals from the sheet here. The young one of them, bowing over a low bough like at Marc and looking at the dam standing on the hind paws against the trunk, baiting with a captured bird. But the bizarre trees – and as such ones Sälzle characterized them expressly in the edition of the preparatory drawings for the following suite – as rather rarer for Ridinger, too, he took over from sheet 19, Th. 181, of the concurrent suite of the “Illustration of the Fair Game with the Respective Traces and Scents” with the marten on the tree at the same attitude and a weasel on the ground shown, however, neutrally.

Thus Marc formulated his “Playing Weasels” just so by means of three Ridinger copies as the latter on his part his “The Amusement of the Shepherds” after Watteau, Thienemann-Stillfried 1397, composed from four models of the French. That finally the trees as more typical for Ridinger was not unfamiliar to Marc, too, shows the right group of trees of his forest picture “The Würm near Pipping” from 1902/03, H.-J. 15 with ills. By the way a lithograph of the same name has been preceded to the oil of his “Playing Weasels” in 1909/10.

But also the par force scenery on the watercolor “Ried Castle” worked one year later – Holst, ills. 11, p. 29 – stands for a further example of Marc’s occupation with Ridinger,

which  in  this  plurality  has  not  been seen  till  now .

Offer no. 7,332 / EUR  248. (c. US$ 322.) + shipping

More single sheets from this set available here

„ vielen herzlichen Dank für die Faxübermittlung Ihres Schriftverkehrs mit … Hochinteressant und das Thema (des jagdlichen) ‚Wurstwagen‘ wunderbar anschaulich darstellend! Nochmals vielen Dank! “

(Museum S. B., 23. Februar 2004)