Kartiny

Moscow: N.I. Grosman and G.A. Vendelshtein, 1900. Broadsheet folio (26 3/8" x 18 3/8", 670mm x 467mm): 2 leaves, pp. [4] (lithographed title-page in red and black, blank, 2pp. contents). With 15 photographic lithographed plates mounted to card, each with a lithographed facsimile signature of Vasnetsov in black and the number and title in red. Loose as issued in the publisher's pictorial four-fold red cloth-backed portfolio. Worn generally, with a good deal of folding and chipping to the edges of the sheets and card-mounts. The front flap of the portfolio detached. Creases and folds to the upper and lower flaps of the portfolio. Loose tissue guards folded and tanned before each plate. Paper control-stamp (or bookseller's ticket?) of the "Izdatel'stvo SP" (SP publishing house) with some glue residue to the long flap of the portfolio. Viktor Mikhailovitch Vasnetsov (1848-1926) was a Russian Revivalist painter, celebrated for his folkloric paintings. His work is closely associated with Russian romantic nationalism, a cultural identity-building ideology often built on historical or pseudo-historical literature (cf. the brothers Grimm in Germany, or the Pre-Raphaelites in Britain). Vasnetsov's major work was a cycle of frescoes for St. Volodomyr's Cathedral in Kyiv. His time in the Ukrainian capital dovetailed with a rising emphasis on the medieval state of Kyivan Rus' and the mythography surrounding it. Once settled back in Moscow, he continued to develop his fairy-tale paintings, including making sets for Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko. During this period he became involved with the Tretyakov Gallery, the preeminent collection of Russian art, which Pavel Mikhailovitch Tretyakov presented to the state in 1892. Vasnetsov designed the façade of the building, and served as a major regent and patron, providing the funds for many of its major acquisitions. Eventually many of his own paintings entered the gallery, including Bogatyrs (Russian wandering knights, vityaz), his most famous. Such was his popularity that the present portfolio was commissioned from one of the great photographers, Karl Andreyevich Fischer (ca. 1850's-ca. 1920's), a co-founder of the Russian Photographic Society and its chairman from 1898 to 1907. He too was closely associated with the Tretyakov Gallery, and published its catalogue in 1899. Doubtless the present item arose from the two artists' work together. The text leaf includes stories and poems from traditional fairy-tales, epics, Herodotus (for the battle of the Scythians), Lermontov, Pushkin, Ostrovsky and Tyutchev. The paintings reproduced depict well-known Russian fairy-tales -- especially those of Alexander Afanasyev, the Russian Grimm -- including the Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf (Ivan Tsarevitch, the knight at the crossroads), and The Snow Maiden. The portfolio is exceptionally rare (in the West; Russian records are largely inaccessible). Only three copies are recorded on OCLC (Vassar, Amherst (both with a different publisher: A.I. Mamontova) and the University of British Columbia; the New York Public Library has a microfiche), and none at auction or on the market. Plates 1. Iz" Lermontova (From Lermontov) 2. Kover' samolet' (Flying carpet) 3. Alenushka (Alyonushka) 4. Ivan" tsarevich' na serom' volke (Ivan Tsarevich on the gray wolf) 5. Tri tsarevny podzemnago tsarstva (Three princesses of the underground kingdom) 6. Vityaz' na rasput'I (Knight at the crossroads) 7. Skithy (Scythians) 8. Iz" slova o polku Igoreve (From the lay of Igor's campaign) 9. Bogatyri (Bogatyrs) 10. Tsar' Ivan" Vasil'yevicha Groznyy (Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible) 11. Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) 12. Zatish'ye (Calm) 13. Gamayun" (Gamayun) 14. Sirin" i alkonost" (Siren and Alkonost) 15. Guslyary (Guslars).…