Bookvica

[BILIBIN] Skazki. Vasilisa Prekrasnaya [i.e. Fairy Tales. Vasilisa the Beautiful] / illustrator I. Ya. Bilibin

Item #2661

St. Petersburg: Izdaniye Ekspeditsii zagotovleniya gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1902. 12 pp., ill. 33 × 25 cm. In the publisher’s chromolithographed cover. Scuffs and slight soiling, traces of creases and loss of small fragments of the spine. The block is mostly clean. Back wrapper with a loss of a piece, not affecting the illustration and price.

Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876—1942) from 1899 to 1903 he illustrated seven Russian folk tales: “Sister Alyonushka and Brother Ivanushka,” “The White Duck,” “The Frog Princess,” “Marya Morevna,” “The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf,” “The Feather of Finist the Bright Falcon,” and “Vasilisa the Beautiful.” These tales (six books in total) were published by the Expedition for the Procurement of State Papers—the finest printing house in the Russian Empire at the time. From the very beginning, Bilibin’s books were distinguished by their ornate designs and vibrant decorativeness. The artist didn’t create isolated illustrations; he strove for a unified whole: he designed the cover, illustrations, ornamental embellishments, and typeface—all stylized to resemble an ancient manuscript. The tale titles are written in Slavic script. To read them, one must peer closely at the intricate lettering. Bilibin designed the same cover for all six books, featuring Russian fairytale characters: the three heroes, the Sirin bird, the Firebird, the Gray Wolf, the Serpent Gorynych, and Baba Yaga’s hut. Yet, it’s clear that this isn’t an oldfashioned work, but a stylized modern one. All the page illustrations are surrounded by ornamental frames, like the carved frames of rustic windows. They are not only decorative but also contain content that continues the main illustration.

Status: On Hold