RIDINGER, Johann Elias.
[Drop-title:] Vorstellung der Pferde ... = Description du cheval ...
[Augsburg, Martin Elias Ridinger and Johann Jakob Ridinger, 1770 or ca. 1768]. 4to. With an engraved allegorical frontispiece or title-print showing the corner of a garden with an equine statue and an asymmetric decorated shield with text, 50 plates with captions in German and French, conceived, drawn and engraved by Ridinger, each giving a lively and personal portrait of a horse. All plates, including frontispiece, beautifully coloured by a contemporary hand as published, some highlighted with white chalk. Further with decorations built up from cast fleurons. Set in 2 columns, mostly with the German in fraktur type on the left and the French in roman and italic on the right (some lists with the German and French on facing pages). Mottled, tanned half sheepskin (ca. 1840), sewn on 3 tapes, with a hollow back, shell-marbled sides (brown shell with blue veins, similar to Wolfe 128), red edges. Recased, with new headbands.
With:
(2) [DRAWING - EQUINE]. RIDINGER, Johann Elias. [Die guthe Gestalt eines Pferdes. = La beauté et les parties exterieures du Cheval.]
[Augsburg, ca. 1765].
Drawing in pen and brown ink, ink washes and white chalk on grey-blue paper (24 x 17 cm, frame of pen-drawn rules 18.5 x 13.5 cm, with an empty panel at the foot for the title), for the second plate of Vorstellung der Pferde. With the small ink stamp of an eagle (9.5 x 7 mm) from the collection of Aldalbert Freiherr von Lanna (1836-1909). In a passe partout. 39, [1 blank] pp. plus plates.
€ 59,500
Rare first edition, in German and French, of a great coloured print series, with a 39-page letterpress text, showing horses in a wide variety of colours and patterns by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767), a German painter, graphic artist and engraver of animals, most famous for his horses: "one of the most beautiful illustrated animal books of the 18th century ... lavishly illustrated and also very rare" (Dejager). Together with the book we offer Ridinger's fine original pen and ink, ink wash and chalk drawing for the second plate. While many books or print series on horses show them standing or occasionally running in a race, most portraits in the present series show them much more naturally: stamping or pawing the ground, rearing up, jumping, kicking, sitting and rolling on the ground. When they do stand still they are often turning their heads.
With significant tears in 2 plates, unobtrusively repaired without loss, but otherwise in good condition, with minor, mostly marginal repairs, small smudges or stains, or minor browned patches in a few other plates. The drawing has a minor crease in the paper, affecting only the background, but is otherwise in fine condition, with only a couple minor marginal defects, not approaching the drawn image. A beautiful and charming horse book, essential to any collection, with the original drawing for one of the plates in fine condition. Cobres 310; Dejager 252; Mennessier de la Lance II, 429; Nissen, ZBI 3418; for the Adalbert von Lanna collection: Lugt I, pp. 516 ff. (no. 2773).
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