Spuhr eines flüchtigen Fuchses. Fährte eines starcken trabenden Fuchses.

Title

Spuhr eines flüchtigen Fuchses. Fährte eines starcken trabenden Fuchses.

Description

Impressive illustration showing six foxes during duck hunting. Below, a track of a fleeing fox and a trail of a heavily trotting fox with labels. From 'Gruendliche Beschreibung und Vorstellung der wilden Thiere nach ihrer Natur, Geschlecht, Alter und Spur'.

ca. 1730

Artist

Ridinger (1698-1767)

Johann Elias Ridinger ( 1698-1767 ) was a German animal painter, engraver, etcher and publisher. The son of a father with a talent for drawing, Ridinger was taught by Christoph Rasch (also Resch) in Ulm and Johann Falch (also Falk) in Augsburg and then continued his education in Regensburg, where his fondness for hunting led him to study game at the court of Count Metternich. After 1717, he undertook further studies at the Imperial City Academy of Georg Philipp Rugendas. He later founded his own art publishing house in Augsburg, where most of his works appeared. In 1759 he became the director of the Academy of Arts. His etched sheets, which amount to about 1600 pieces, depict animals in characteristic moments of life and scenic environments. Old prints of the sheets are rare.

Historical Description

Hunting is one of the most primitive activities in human history and is older than anatomically modern humans themselves. The oldest undisputed archaeological evidence for hunting dates from the Old Pleistocene and coincides with the emergence and spread of Homo erectus about 1.7 million years ago. Hunting enabled significant steps in human evolution through the associated need for specialization, division of labor, and advance planning among hunters, such as in the production of tools and hunting weapons. Jointly conducted hunting promoted social and communicative skills and formed one of the foundations of human culture. With the spread of sedentarization of man in the course of the Neolithic Revolution and the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry, hunting became of secondary importance as a source of nutrition for large parts of the population. At the same time, the changed living conditions in the protection of cultivated land from game damage and the control of predators to protect livestock also resulted in new uses for hunting. In the course of time the most different kinds of hunting have developed, which are adapted to special situations or the hunting of certain animal species. There are several ways to systematize at least some of the hunting types. One of the most common classifications distinguishes according to the number of hunters involved, especially in individual and social hunting.