UBB.threads Forums Edged Weapons Hunting, Forestry, and Shooting Forum Pre-'45 Hunting Art

Gentlemen,

I thought perhaps some old hunting artwork might be in order? I don't think we've seen too many threads on paintings or drawings or others along these lines? Another area that I enjoy is collecting images that pertain to the hunting and forestry fields, especially the animals.

I know that some of you most likely have hunting weapon catalogs in your collections, and some of those might be beautifully illustrated with line-drawings of animals? It might be fun to see what's noteworthy along these lines and share some of your favorites.

I'll start off with a few that I recently got from a gent in Belgium that owns a nice old bookshop. The first four are Dutch hunting-theme illustrations and could easily be mistaken for German works. The second pair of elongated paintings are German, and all of them originate from right around the turn of the century.

Maybe some of you fellas might be able to scan and post a couple of your favorites, too?
I hope you'll enjoy these ...

Best regards!

Bill

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These are outstanding Bill, thanks for posting! I'm partial to the bold graphic presentation of the unique Hubertus style Hirsch Sch�del. I have quiet a few pre-WW2 graphics of this nature in my archives, and I'll try to dig them up at some point soon.

The first set of Jugendstil style images look to be 3 color prints, but the naturalistic scenes appear to be hand tinted? Any ideas? These subtle distinctions are often difficult to ascertain in a jpeg.

I'm reminded that I recently came across some original Theo K�rner hunting drawings on the german ebay. I should have thought to send you the link but my mind was elsewhere. I don't think the prices were unreasonable. If I find any more I'll certainly let you know.

Thank you again for posting these fantastic images.

B.A. Vierling

Bill,
Thanks for showing these. Thats really special and all are very very nice! I was sure I had a few copies of original art somewhere myself and a original Karner painting that you have probably seen before. I will hunt some more for them.

Gentlemen,

I'll try to answer the questions first ...

A - the first four illustrations were prepared as they appear, in the first photo you can see the addition of black as a color to enhance the overall contrast and shadow-areas - boots, jacket, cap, cuffs, etc. If you look carefully, the second, third and fourth photos
lack any true black tones and the darkest shadow areas are composed of other colors that were used by the artist. All of the prints were reproduced using the "four-color process," meaning the original was seperated into precise amounts of, cyan, magenta, yellow and black, to faithfully duplicate the artist's color palette. The two paintings on the bottom were also printed usuing a four-color screening process, but it's easier to spot the use of black in this case. This craftsman used lots of black ink to highlight the darkest areas and silhouette certain parts of his work.

Hand-painted engravings are a horse of a different color altogether and exhibit the most vibrant of colors. I don't know if we'd be able to spot a hand-colored piece in this format, but I'll try to post at least one to see if we can?

In the meantime, here's another stylized Hubertus depiction. Looking forward to any and all additional goodies ...

Bill

Bill,
I have many black and white litho's from 1870's, but don't think I have any of color, except for ship battle scenes and none as nice as the ones you have shown. Thanks.

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Bill,
Hope you enjoyed the animals. Here's a fairly large painting with the original frame that I've had for many many years. It's not a high quality painting but not a bad painting either. I guess it's grown on me over the years because the more I look at it the more I like it. If you look close you'll see that the birds are hand painted on real leaves. Thanks.

Mikee,

Now that's an unusual painting, it's great! Never seen one like it before, wherever
did you find that one? ha, I'm tickled for you!

I know I'll be coming back to look at this piece a few more times ...

The first set of illustrations look like they depict life in the hunting-preserve or something along those lines? On the third one down the Hirsch looks to be falling or something? Is there a caption for it?

It's hard for me to tell but this series looks like it might have originally been pencil on paper? Very nice!

Here's an example of a hand-colored engraving that goes back to the 1850's. I hope you'll be able to see the rich color-saturation ...
At times colors like this are hard to reproduce with conventional four-color printing methods, touchy at best.

Gotta love those terns Mikee, thanks for the good additions!

W~

Some very nice examples here, here's my only example, there are many of these available on german Ebay if anybody fancies are a few examples.

Gary

Bill,
Glad you like the Tern painting! I had never seen one like it either, so I grabbed it up at a flea market many years ago. I've never researched the artist so I'm not sure when it was painted, I guess maybe early 1900's? The caption under the falling deer reads "Der sturz �ber die felswand", Carl M�ller. (The fall over the cliff). I think they were pencil but I�m not absolutely sure.
The color, detail and crap load of patience on that fish is just amazing! I�m marveled by this type of talent. Thanks for showing it Bill!

Gary,
That's a very nice example. I prefer the color prints but they cost a little more.

Here's a few more litho's. And I can't leave without posting "K�rner's Parforcejagd" which is fairly large as well. It was time to kick the dust off it anyway. Thanks.

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Some excellent images on display! I'm a great fan of 19th century lithographs. The first scene with the fox and the hair is really nice.

Thank you for the clarification on color printing methods Bill. It's been a while since I studied up on the screening procedure, and I had heard from some sources that early 20th century processes sometimes included hand mixing pigments to tailor individual images? Just curious why printing quality, especially in books plate illustration, degraded so significantly after the 1940s.

I thought I had some early prints of the hubertus icon myself, but I can't seem to locate them. Will keep searching. The very jugendstil stylized version Bill posted is great.

I do have a period Print titled 'R�ckkehr von der Jagd'. Image to follow. This painting was exhibited in 1942 at the Prussian Academy in Berlin.

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Because of the small size, here is a Close-up.

Albrecht,
That's really something!I love art! Thanks for posting it."K�rner's Parforcejagd"

Mikee and Albrecht, beautiful additions to the thread, here's a few more, the first is from the ADJV.A large almost poster size print with just a splash of colour.

This one from the Deutsche J�gerschaft, this one also has some colour, I think it's been hand finished as others of these J�gerbrief I have seen have no colour.

The last one is another litho.

Gents,

Some mighty fine images, hoping to see even more ...

G - Love the Rehwild family, nice soft-looking color tones. The illustrations on the documents are really first class, there's just so much to look at in these things. They're both full of life and energy, you see one animal, then another and another ... very cool. On top of that, the Ehrendiplom shows many tools of the trade to include netting, temporary fencing to guide the animal's given direction and lots of hardware. Who could ask for more?

Mikee - Those feral-cats look like they can take good care of themselves, some tough looking customers for sure! heh, those old vultures look pretty big, but that's part of what gives these old drawings their own unique style and makes them all the more enjoyable. They almost literally date themselves just through that novel style and the printing methods. The K�rner is simply wonderful! For those that might know any of his Nymphenburg or Allach horse studies, the horse in Mikee's painting is the spitting-image of them.
Mikee, you should get one of those sculptures with the exact same coloration as the one in the illustration, it'd look great with the painting as a background, eh?

Albrect - Now that's truly a classic, really a gem! That painting would make for one heck of a nice addition to anyone's Hirschf�nger collection, wow ... It reminds me of the late Andrew Wyeth's father's style, N.C. Wyeth. There was a painting he did called "The Giant," where the sky and clouds look almost exactly like that. Can you tell us the size of the painting? It's most impressive, even at this small size.

I think the reason for the lacklustre quality of commercially-printed photographs after 1940 was due in good part to the skill levels of the photographers and those responsible for turning the artwork into a series of halftone dots. To do it properly, it used to call for an engineering-level knowledge of mathematics as well as a chemist's background in the darkroom for starters ... then the presses had to be tuned to perfection, the blankets, paper and inks just right and then off to the races. Most often the results were and are merely acceptable, good enough for the majority of production purposes - fini. I can remember working for days and days on a single image, testing, proofing and re-working, just to get a certain hue just right. That rarely happens anymore. As today's level of production increases and budgets dictate everything, halftone quality has fallen to an all-time low. It's come down to sophisticated, �ber-technical machinery dictating pre-determined calculations, settings and results - mediocrity has now become the standard of excellence! Don't get me wrong, there are still many top-notch printers around, but only a special few have the talent necessary to produce "art-quality" printing, especially using the older methods. Lots of fine-art, coffee-table books and some very limited editions have beautiful photos and illustrations printed on their pages by guys who truly know the trade, but wow, nice books are getting crazy expensive these days.

Here's another plain, old-fashioned simple, color illustration I hope you'll all enjoy ... best!

Bill

Thought this one would fit in here, too ...

Diana, goddess of the hunt. From an original aquarelle (transparent watercolors) by Professor G. Sturm.

W~

Bill-
Really nice rendition of Diana.I like the dog's gaze,like he's ready to pounce when the arrow hits.
Do you have any more info you could give about it? Was it used in a book?
Has somewhat of a art nouveau look to it.Great stuff.

Concerning the first four pictures in this thread: I seriously doubt that they are from dutch origin. Especially the second one shows without any doubt mountain dressing (typical german/austrian clothing) and I dare to doubt there are remarkable mountains at holland (remember "dutch mountains" ).
Also the third one with the wild boar shows typical german mediaeval dressing.
Just my thoughts.
Here are some of my hunting trophy- and nature view oil paintings.
First kind of gray partridge.
Regards,

Second one is a hazel grouse.

Last one is dog against wild boar.

Wotan,

Three beautiful paintings, very nice! In your second photo I see the tops of three Hirschf�nger there, too. They go together hand-in-glove with your fine hunting artwork. The bird in the first painting is a great example of
the French trompe l'oeil style, it looks as though the bird is really hanging there on the wall. Thanks for taking time to share these.
Are those Dutch mountains similar to the fiords
of Madagascar? The old bookplate I have is titled, "Verschillende liefhebbers der Jachtsport," Dutch I think, no? That's about all I can tell you on those..?

Dean, the two animal friezes and Diana are all from the hand of Professor G. Sturm, late 1800's, early 1900's. The lithographs were published by the Verlag of Julius Hoffmann, Stuttgart. The series of books that contained these illustrations is titled, "Dekorative Vorbilder," or decorative frontice-(book)plates.
These books were a compilation of works by accomplished European artist's of the Jugendstil/late Nouveau periods. The volumes or annuals have some of the finest Nouveau paintings, illustrations and graphic-art subjects that I've ever seen. Most of these books have been chopped apart over the years and sold as individual plates for good money. Rare to find books that are intact and when you do, rather expensive. At times you'll be lucky and find a plate or two that you might like in the $20-50 range.

Here's another similar animal-related plate from an Italian decorative-art book from that same time frame. This one titled, "Serpenti," by Ugo Palchetti.

Best regards to all !

Bill

A couple of black and white line illustrations...

W~

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