LESSER- KINGS OF POLAND images collected and drawn by Alexander ed. 1860 binding by A. Kantor

[LESSER Alexander]
KINGS OF POLAND
images collected and drawn by Alexander Lesser, clarified withhistorical text by Julian Bartoszewicz.

Warsaw, 1860. by the Artistic and Lithographic Establishment and the imprint of Adolphe Pecq & Comp.Printed by Jozef Ungra, forntispis, k [3], pp. 8, [1], [104-descriptions to plates], figure plates 41 [lithographs], folio format: 27 x38.5 cm

HARDCOVER FULL LEATHER OF THE PERIOD WITH GILT TITLING ON THE FACE AND RIBBON ON THE SPINE. CENTRALLY BETWEEN THE TITLE A QUADRANGULAR COAT OF ARMS OF THE REPUBLIC OF BOTH NATIONS, THE WHOLE SURROUNDED BY A CONVEX BORDER. THE BACK COVER IS FRAMED, THE EDGES OF THE PAGES GILT. COVER OF IRIDESCENT MOIRÉ. BINDING SIGNED ON THE PASTEDOWN WITH A BOOKBINDER'S STICKER A. CANTOR IN WARSAW

"Large Lesser" with a set of lithographs. The album contains images of 40 Polish kings and rulers from Mieczyslaw (Mieszko) I to Stanislaw August Poniatowski, plus images of tsars: Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II, the latter added only to part of the edition.

The offered copy lacks the portrait of Prince Frederick August of Warsaw, Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II - added to a small part of the edition.

The portraits according to drawings by Alexander Lesser were made by Warsaw lithographers Wladyslaw Walkiewicz and Henryk Aschenbrenner. In front of the plates with portraits of Polish kings there are short biographies of the rulers . "The following served as models for the portraits: paintings of great painters preserved in domestic and foreign galleries, statues of our kings on sepulchral monuments in the Cracow Cathedral and others found in the cathedral, chisels of grandmasters such as Wit Stwosz, contemporary medals, and finally seals, coins, etc.". In order to draw portraits of our earliest rulers, such as the first kings of the Piast dynasty, it was necessary to collect all their memorabilia, and even memories scattered in old chronicles, to assemble, as it were, their facial features and clothing, and to make guesses using woodcuts in those chronicles" (before the plates there is a "List of materials used for the images of Polish kings", signed on November 29, 1859 by Alexander Lesser).

Condition BDB-/ minor rubbing of binding, discoloration of covers, own markings, oval staining of lower margin of several endpapers, also of boards, nevertheless DECORATIVE piece