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Histoire et monuments des émaux byzantins

 
HOLLIS Number
Contributors
Kondakov, N. P. (Nikodim Pavlovich), 1844-1925
Publication
Frankfurt: [publisher not identified], 1892

Description

Digital facsimile

Translation of: Istorii͡a i pami͡atniki vizantitskoi emali.

Translated from the Russian by Florentin Trawinski. Cf. p. vi.

Issued in an ed. of 200 numbered copies.

Illuminated preface, initials, tail-pieces, end-papers, and fore-edges.

Boards heavily decorated in black and gold on white. Title-pages, dedication, plates and end pieces engraved in gold and colors; arguments to each chapter printed in gold letters within borders of gold and colors; initials printed in black only. The frontispiece (Zvenigorodskĭǐ's portrait) was included only in such copies as were presented by Zvenigorodskĭǐ to his personal friends.

Includes index.

"Written by Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov and produced as a presentation copy for Tsar Alexander III in 1892, this sumptuous volume describes early Byzantine, Kievan and Georgian enamels that were part of Aaron Zvenigorodsky’s collection. In 1910, the collection was bought by J. P. Morgan. In a 1912 New York Herald interview, Jacques Seligmann, who was intimately involved in the negotiations for acquiring the collection for Morgan, said: “Nobody can imagine the beauty and rarity of Mr. Morgan’s collection. I, who have had every article in my hand, cannot find words to express its marvelous beauty and quality.” In 1917, four years after Morgan’s death, his son presented the pieces from the Zvenigorodsky collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art"—Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library online catalog, viewed September 30, 2013.

"Very little is known of the collector Aaron Zwenigorodskoi himself. It is believed that he developed an interest in medieval art during a visit to Spain in 1864. By the end of the nineteenth century, his collection included 43 early Byzantine, Georgian, and Kievan enamels of the highest quality. At the time, his collection was considered the premier collection of Byzantine and related enamels, but now it is recognized that some of the pieces are of questionable provenance"—Dumbarton Oaks online exhibition Before the Blisses: Nineteenth-Century Connoisseurship of the Byzantine Minor Arts, viewed June 4, 2015 (http://www.doaks.org/resources/online-exhibits/before-the-blisses/collectors/the-zwenigorodskoi-collection)

 

Language

French
 

Subject

Zvenigorodskiǐ, Aleksandr Viktorovich, -- 1844-190 -- Art collections.; Enamel and enameling, Byzantine.; Art, Byzantine.