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VERESHCHAGIN, Vasilii Vasilevich.
Turkestan', ztiudy s' natury.
Publisher: St. Petersburg: V magazinie A. Beggrova, 1874
Stock code: 49244
Price: £9,500 Currency Conversion
First edition. Extremely uncommon pictorial record of the khanates of central Asia by the recognised master of the Russian Realist school, who recorded the people, the architecture, and the landscapes he encountered in almost obsessive detail, here superbly reproduced by photographic process. The first publication of Vereshchagin's work, there are just a handful of copies recorded worldwide: the V&A only in the UK; Library of Congress, NY Public Library, Cornell, and University of Oregon in North America. Initially intended for a career in the imperial navy, at the age of eight Vereshchagin was sent to Tsarskoe Selo to join the Alexander cadet corps, and three years later he entered the naval school at St Petersburg, making his first voyage on the Kamchatka in 1858. He graduated first in his class, but left to take up the study of art at the St Petersburg Academy, winning a medal for his prize piece in 1863, and in 1864 travelling to Paris to study for a year with Gérôme. In 1867 he was chosen to join General Kauffmann's expedition to Turkestan, from which period the present images are partly drawn, "where he served with distinction at the siege of Samarkand and was awarded the Cross of St. George" (Thieme/Becker). He remained in Turkestan for some time, and travelled in the Himalayas, India and Tibet. On his return to St. Petersburg in 1874 the exhibition of his paintings from this period stirred considerable controversy for what was perceived as his anti-war stance. However, he was attached to Skobolev's headquarters during the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-8, and later was present at the Sino-Japanese, Spanish-American, and Russo-Japanese Wars. His "1812" series, painted in Moscow in 1893, for which he wrote an accompanying text, was inspired by War and Peace, and similarly applied his intense realism to the horrors of the Napoleonic campaign in Russia. Highly desirable as both an artistic and documentary record.
Folio (470 × 325 mm). Modern half calf on marbled boards to style, black morocco title label to spine. Plates mounted on guards. Title page in Russian, German and French, contents leaves in Russian and French, 26 plates with 106 silver gelatine prints, of various formats, from Vereshchagin's paintings. Title page repaired, no loss of text, some spotting on the mounts, but overall very good indeed.
