Dietericy’s etching, “Landscape in the manner of Ruisdael”, 1745

Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietricy (aka Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich) (1712–74)

“Landscape in the manner of Ruisdael”, 1745

Etching on laid paper

Size: (sheet) 17.8 x 23.4 cm; (plate) 10.5 x 16.7 cm; (image borderline) 10.1 x 16.5 cm

Signed and dated in the plate at upper left

State i (of at least ii as the BM holds a state ii impression)

Linck 1846 259.159.I (JF Linck 1846, “Monographie der von C. W. E. Dietrich radierten, geschabten und in Holz geschnittenen malerischen Vorstellungen”, Berlin)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

Landscape with figures on a path to right; houses amongst trees and a church spire to left; first state. 1745 Etching” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1471592&partId=1&people=127014&peoA=127014-2-60&page=3)

Condition: a faultless exceptionally rare, first state impression with generous margins (varying from 3 to 4 cm) in near pristine condition. There is a remnant of mounting tape and pencil notations about the impression (verso).

I am selling this exceptionally rare landscape etching executed in the style of Jacob van Ruisdael (1629–82) for the total cost of AU$246 (currently US$185.44/EUR173.97/GBP152.57 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this delicately rendered and skilfully balanced landscape composition that is full of light and air, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Very few landscape etchings of the 18th century are as delicately executed as this remarkably beautiful study. Although it is executed in the style of one of the greatest of all landscape artists—the legendary Ruisdael—the print should be viewed as much more than a pastiche. Certainly the image displays key attributes of Ruisdael’s drawing style (e.g. his use of tightly curved small strokes; his seemingly random, but very meaningfully placed, stipples; his leaning to juxtapose densely worked areas with broad untouched areas), but Dietericy has added a dimension to the portrayed scene that is more about his own vision than that of Ruisdael: a different way of portraying distance.

Arguably, Ruisdael’s approach to representing spatial depth tends to be about framing glimpses of distance through landscape features such as trees—the notion of a translucent landscape. By contrast, Dietericy’s approach is all about concrete solids arranged with precision to provide visual “stepping-stones” into the distance.

In short, Dietericy may have appropriated many of Ruisdael’s stylistic traits but these idiosyncrasies have been subverted to his own very personal way of looking.

Jacob van Ruisdael’s etching, “The Great Beech with Two Men and a Dog”, c. 1651–55

Jacob Isaaksz van Ruisdael (also “Ruysdael”) (c.1629–82)

“The Great Beech with Two Men and a Dog”, c. 1651–55, from McCreery’s 1816 edition of “200 Etchings” pulled from the original plates

Etching on fine wove paper trimmed on or within the platemark (as published by McCreery) and lined onto a conservator’s support sheet

Size: (sheet) 19.7 x 28.3 cm

Inscribed in lower margin: "Ruisdael f.".

State II (of II)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Two farmers with their dog; landscape with the farmers on a road in lower left, walking through a forest, a mature and gnarled tree in right foreground. c.1650” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3097027&partId=1&searchText=ruisdael&page=3)

Slive EII; Bartsch I.312.2; Hollstein 2.II

Condition: crisp, richly inked and rare impression. The upper right corner has been reattached on the conservator’s support sheet and there is a small loss to the left margin and a reattached section to the left margin; otherwise, the sheet is in excellent condition (i.e. there are no stains, folds, foxing or signs of use).

I am selling this very beautiful impression of one of Ruisdael’s most celebrated etchings for AU$400 in total (currently US$298.38/EUR281.44/GBP239 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world. If you are interested in purchasing this very famous original etching by the almost legendary old master, Jacob van Ruisdael, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Artists’ relatives are sometimes responsible for dreadful acts to prints so let me begin …

I remember reading somewhere—and my memory could be playing tricks on me—that Ruisdael’s son thought that his dad’s original composition for this print lacked “finish” and decided to add what he believed to be necessary improvements; that is, he decided to fix up his father’s print by reworking it. 

(Note: many writers are not specific about who reworked this plate and use the broad description: “by other hands”. Their generic description of the culprit(s) may be appropriate as Weigel (1843) and Dutuit (1885) propose that there was a third state with further reworking. Notwithstanding these writers’ proposal of further reworking of the plate, Jonas Umbach [1624–93] made a reverse copy of Ruisdael’s print featuring the details of the reworked plate as shown here and this confirms that the changes were made within a few years of Ruisdael’s death. Seymour Slive’s (2001) in his catalogue raisonné on Ruisdael [pp. 604–05] discusses these issues.)

To solve what his son perceived to be a lack of pictorial information in the upper left of the sky, he added the cumulus clouds using very clumsily laid horizontal strokes in the surrounding sky to make the clouds appear fluffy white. The son also perceived that the original composition (i.e. state i) lacked tonal variety. In a sense this is true, because his father bit the printing plate with acid only twice to achieve the dark tone of the foreground tree and the light tone of the distant trees. To remedy this perceived shortfall, the foreground tree was enlivened with darker lines. Clifford S Ackley (1981) in his fabulous, “Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt”, offers the following insight about these lines: “Heavier etched shading outline the fallen tree trunk and the rock, so that they stand out as separate entities rather than forming part of a painterly unity” p. 227).

Regarding the wriggly lines in the sky at the top right, these are not by Ruisdael’s son. Instead, they are accidents—arguably serendipitous—resulting from craquelure breaks in the etching ground. This fault is not uncommon and De Groot (1979) points out that this issue also occurs in Rembrandt’s “The Little Stink Mill”—a windmill (see Slive [2001], p. 604).