and already
loaded to bursting
with
the
intentions
of the
coming
50
years
171(4 ?)
as the master’s
earliest (?) fully valid drawing
and
thematic Prelude to a Decades-long Chain …
Johann Elias Ridinger
Ulm 1698 – Augsburg 1767
Mule from Front. With long bells & feed bag, packed evenly on both sides with covered baggage. Red chalk. Inscribed: 1718(4?). 203 x 148 mm.
On buff laid paper. – Of perfect preservation irrespective of a small unfounded backing between the forelegs.
Work documenting the master’s from his youth on long breath
from 1718 the latest, rather supposedly from already 1714 as the then 16-years old though. For the 8 of the date, smaller than the other figures, is oblique and open above and in such a manner to be related to the representation of half eight values. By this, however, it would be
Ridinger’s earliest fully executed drawing provable here
before , else concurrent with , the drawing of an animal jaw from 1718 of then Faber-Castell’s codex of 109 drawings by the master (95) and his sons dissolved after 1958. The drawing of a stag of 10 points on a hill opposite to a higher hill grown with two firs and full sun above right in black chalk and inscribed “Johan Elias, 7 (years)” discovered by Timm Luckhardt does not yet go beyond a child’s work irrespective of two remarkably seen birds of prey in the sky.
The latter quite in contrast to the 7-years old Gerard Ter Borch (1617-1681) referred to here deliberately by the pen and ink drawing of a Mounted Rider, seen from behind, presented in the master’s 1974 Hague exhibition catalog (no. 73, pp. 212 f. with ills.). However, with the – relativizing Ridinger’s child writing – remark that of no single artist of the 17th century such an early sample of his artistic vein has become known.
So here it is not about a comparison of age, rather about the comparison of the theme of an animal seen exactly from behind there, from front here by a generally young artist. Raised by the fact that the earliest known oil by the about 17-years old Ter Borch takes up just that child work of a mounted rider seen from behind (no. 1 of the catalog). What prompted the consideration here if this front/back view has to be regarded as simple and therefore related to the age. On this quite contrarily in the catalog:
“ It is odd to see already that early
a figure represented from behind .”
For Ter Borch it became, “as Gudlaugsson says, the Leitmotif of his later years”.
Just as then through the decades also Ridinger turned his attention again and again to the professionally packed mule and horse, why, even the stag (Fable XVIII, Th. 782). The set of the Fables was published in 16 sheet in 1744, the drawings to the exceedingly rare, however available here, additional four sheets have to be dated correspondingly later and were transferred into copper only after 1767 by Martin Elias.
We encounter the whole plenty of loaded animals in parts 6 & 7 of the 126-sheet set Design of Several Animals published only 1754/55 – pts. 1-5 already 1738/40 – and here especially among the mules and donkeys from 1754, Th. 503 ff., most available here in splendid copies of the first edition, then 1755 in the Sumpter Horse (Th. 501).
However , in analogy to the present drawn Mule from Front
solely the engraved Mule from Behind , Th. 509 .
For the Mule in Full Dress from Front (Th. 507) is just a lateral view as the Great Mule Loaded (Th. 503) and Mule with Its Leader (Th. 506) and also A Kind of Great Mule with the little dog on top (Th. 504) is seen laterally, the Mule in Full Dress, from the Side (Th. 508) anyway.
Present drawing created 40 years before
therefore was spiritus rector
without having been reproduced itself !
Filling the given sheet size on three sides completely, on the right up to 15 mm, the subject size is generally larger than the later engravings with their accessories & subtext, yet already defined about their size. Th. portfolio IV, p (p. 276) on his part records two “Mules loaded” remaining not engraved, however executed in “wash and brown ink” like all 118 sheet for the set of the Design of Several Animals known to him. A brush drawing from 1724 of a horse to the left heavily loaded with household effects and mounted by a woman with baby related to this context was with count Radulf zu Castell-Rüdenhausen. Remains as résumé
A RIDINGER TROUVAILLE WITHOUT RETURN .
Quite comparable to the master’s last copperplate from 1767 traded here in the 90s.
Offer no. 15,442 / price on request
„ I have seen your excellent promo for this item (referring the Diego Ribeiro map) and I may be interested in acquiring it for a very important gift … “
(Mr. M. A. B., December 5, 2008)