The eighteenth-century German painter, printmaker, and publisher Johan Elias Ridinger was a specialist in the depiction of animals, initially of horses and hunt scenes, but later of wild animals as well. The drawings in this portfolio are akin to his many studies of formal riding schools, and the squaring suggests that the drawings were intended to be made into engravings, but no related prints have yet been found among the more than 1600 sheets that Ridinger published.