Description du Sacre et du Couronnement

Fine copy of this celebrated coronation album. Nominative example for the Comte de Moy, with the rare chromolithographed limitation statement.

The beautiful chromo-lithographed plates and illustrations, some heightened with gold, were drawn by the best artists of the time, including Vereshchagin and Samokish. They illustrate the ceremonies and events in Moscow marking the Coronation of Alexander III and his Danish-born Empress Marie Feodorovna, sister of Alexandra, later Queen consort of Edward VII of the United Kingdom. This commemorative monument was printed only for the Imperial family and foreign dignitaries participating in the celebrations on 15 May 1883: it was never offered for public sale and is accordingly rare.

Count Moy was a Bavarian diplomat at the Imperial Court in St Petersburg, sometime Grand Master of Ceremonies to the King of Bavaria.

First edition; large folio (66 x 51 cm); 27 chromolithographs, including title, after Simakov, Makovskii, Sokolov, Savitskii, Karazin, Polenov, Kramskoi, Vereshchagin, Makorov, Bogdanov, Grigor'ev, Aleksandrovskii, Surikov and Samokish, decorative initials and illustrations in the text, text printed in black, blue and red, occasional light marginal spotting, one text leaf worn with some loss, extra-illustrated with a full page chromolithographed limitation, numbered 25, with repairs ;cloth-backed boards preserving the original printed paper cover (small area lacking, spotting), a good copy.