# The Industrious Hunter, in Spring

- By: Johann Elias Ridinger (German, 1698-1767)
- Date: n.d.
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown and gray wash, over graphite, on laid ivory paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 31 × 25 cm (12 1/4 × 9 7/8 in.)
- Culture: Germany
- Credit line: Purchased with funds provided by Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/222578)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/b54a1aef-5a2c-7852-4ab6-f6c7cb68f571/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Johann Elias Ridinger, a prolific Augsburg etcher of animals, set up his own printing house in the 1720s, eventually creating a market for his realistic portraits and allegories that stretched across Europe and into Britain. Hunting scenes, including both animals and aristocratic figures, were one of his specialties. This drawing, Spring, and its pendant Winter, come from a series depicting hunters across the four seasons. The hunter portrayed here holds a heron and a rifle as he contentedly gazes at his bounty of deer, rabbits, and other birds.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0