The Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the Hunt

The Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the Hunt

Johann Elias Ridinger

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing is the model for one etching in a series of sixteen by Ridinger called The Coursing Hunt for Stag. This type of hunt, which lasted for hours, consisted of large parties of riders on horseback with packs of hounds, and was extremely popular with the European aristocracy in the eighteenth century. Here, Prince Wolf Freiherr von Metternich and his wife, their pet dog, and their two attendants arrive in a carriage drawn by six stallions and accompanied by the driver, outriders, and various footmen. Dispersed in the park around them are the hunters awaiting their arrival to begin, while in the middle ground a rider with a whip, perhaps the master of the hounds, heads toward the packs to get them ready.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the HuntThe Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the HuntThe Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the HuntThe Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the HuntThe Arrival of the Princely Carriage at the Starting Point of the Hunt

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.