Henri Benner (1 results)

Fine stipple-engraved portraits --- Fine example of these celebrated portraits, here kept in their original printed boards and complete with both title pages and both subscribers' lists, mentioning only 329 copies, including most European royalty. With the Duchesse de Berry ex-libris. Painted on enamel at the height of Alexander I's reign, soon after his victory over Napoleon, these portraits are the most famous work of the French artist Benner (1776-1836), a pupil of Isabey and employed by the Russian nobility in Warsaw and St. Petersburg. They show the Tsar's ancestors and own close family and were published on the initiative of Prince Lobanov-Rostovskii. Provenance: Duchesse de Berry, Bibliothèque de Rosny (bookplate to upper cover, possibly added later). Physical description:Folio. Title in Russian, title in French, 24 portrait plates after Benner,stipple-engraved mostly by Joseph Mecou, also by Charles Johannot, Antoine Jean Baptiste Coupé and Friedrich John, all with printed captions in Russian and French, subscribers' lists in French and in Russian xii and x pp. Original publisher's printed boards, one cover printed in Russian, the other in French. Condition:Boards rubbed and soiled, spine renewed; minor rare spotting, Russian list of subscribers a bit browned, otherwise fresh internally. Bibliography:Lipperheide Kaa 33 (incompl.); Thieme/B. III, 332; Vereshchagin 801; Obolianinov 159; this edition not in Gubar.