(Nicholas II) — Vasily Silovich Krivenko (ed.) | The lavishly illustrated Coronation Album of the Romanov monarchs

(Nicholas II) — Vasily Silovich Krivenko (ed.)

Koronatsionnyi sbornik s soizvoleniya Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva Godudarya Imperatora... Tom pervyi (-vtoroi) [Coronation Album... Volume one (-two)]. St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsiya Zagotovleniya Gosudartvennykh Bumag, 1899

2 vols., folio (438 x 315 mm). Half-titles, numerous plates including chromolithographs, some gilt and embossed, maps, diagrams, and photographic illustrations, many by Samokish, tissue guards, some printed with captions and labels, decorative initials, head- and tail-pieces, and with the folding decorative menu by Vasnetsov, sometimes lacking; tape repairs throughout to closed tears, primarily marginal but affecting some folding plates, and to gutter of many leaves, a few gatherings loose but holding with tape, some edges chipped, some gutters with offsetting from stubs. Original green morocco gilt with inlaid pictorial design by Samokish, inset metal medallion at head of each upper cover, spine with similar decoration and lettering, edges gilt, patterned silk endleaves; medallions tarnished, spines sunned and worn at head and foot with slight loss, small stains to lower cover of vol. II, but overall a relatively bright copy.

An opulent set commemorating the coronation of Nicholas II and Alexandra Fedorovna—the last rulers of the Russian Empire.

The Coronation Album, published three years after the final Romanov monarchs ascended to the throne, follows in a long tradition of elaborate Russian livres des fêtes dating back to Empress Ivanovna in the eighteenth century. The volumes recount the history of imperial coronations in Russia and depict the events at the coronation of Nicholas and Alexandra, with illustrated plates of the ceremony, labeled photographs of attendees, and reproductions of posters, invitations, programs, and menus.

REFERENCES

Fekula 2560

PROVENANCE

Nicholas II? (bookplate of his personal library in the Winter Palace taped to preliminary leaves)