A. Lesser's Polish kings' post from 1860, framed by A. Kantor

BARTOSZEWICZ Juljan - The Kings of Poland, images collected and drawn by Alexander Lesser, explained with historical text by ... Warsaw 1860, in the Artistic and Lithographic Company of A. Pecq & Comp. Printed by J. Ungra. Folio, pp. [6], 8, [106 - many pagination], plate 44, frontispiece in chromolithography. Original gilt leather binding, gilt trim.
Banach 581; Now o. I.16.22. Repaired minor damage to bottom of spine, front cover slightly scratched, ironed corner crease of frontispiece, first pages taped at spine. Owner's signature. Binding from Adolf Kantor's Warsaw Introligatornia (gilt signature on front past edown - in Polish, which is rare). On the front cover in gilt the coat of arms of the Crown and Lithuania and the title on the ribbon. On the back cover gilt monogram S. M. and date 1863. spine richly gilt. At the beginning a striking color frontispiece by Ludwik Piechaczek with the coats of arms of the Polish lands and the annexed countries and the coats of arms of the electoral kings. On a separate page a list of these coats of arms. A one-page preface is followed by an index of the images, listing the iconographic and historical sources used for the portraits. Each portrait is accompanied by a biographical text in Polish and French. Images of kings in oval form. 24.5x19.5 on board form. 37.8x26.2 cm; lithographed by H. Aschenbrenner, engravings reproduced at Lithograph A. Pecq & C-o. After the likeness of Stanislaw August, four more portraits were added: Frederick Augustus, Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II. Describing nineteenth-century images of kings and prominent Poles, W. Przybyszewski calls Lesser and Bartoszewicz's album "the most outstanding artistic and editorial achievement of the time" ("Masters and Dilettantes," War. 2012, p. 103).