Lot 208A email save

KUTEPOV, Nikolai Ivanovich (1851-1908). Velikokny

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St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsiya Zagotovleniya Gosudarstvennykh Bumag, 1896-1898-1902-[1911]. 4 volumes, folio (358 x 270 mm). 3 titles in red and black, 3 chromolithographic frontispieces, numerous plates (some mounted, some colored) after Alexandre Benois, Evgenii Lansere, Leonid Pasternak, Ilya Repin, Nikolai Semenov Samokish, Valentin Serov, Viktor Vasnetsov and others, illustrations, some colored decorations in the text. Original non-uniform variously-colored morocco-backed cloth, covers and spines elaborately decorated in gilt and colors, patterned endpapers, g.e. Condition: the fourth volume lacking the title and chromolithographic frontispiece, the mount of the plate between pp. 228 and 229 in vol.III cut down and re-inserted, the mount of plate preceeding p.1 in vol.III with the lower outer corner broken away, occasional spotting; some scuffing to extremities. Provenance: St. Nicholas Old Orthodox Church (blindstamp). a very rare set: a mixed issue with second printings of volumes I and II, a first edition of volume III and the fouth volume unidentified. "These four volumes are now very rarely found as a set....the first description of hunting published in Russia" (Fekula 2575). The four volumes cover the imperial hunts and other aspects of courtly life from the tenth through the nineteenth centuries. It also reproduces historical documents, rare engravings, maps and other material. The Ukrainian Samokish was responsible for most of the historical illustrations while the other artists of the Silver Age were commissioned to provide other kinds of scenes of the court. Truly one of the most magnificent books ever published. Apparently the only other complete set in the United States is at the New York Public Library.

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