Offered on April 7-8 at Northeast Auctions (20% buyer’s premium) of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this large folio work boasted a handsome armorial binding of brown morocco with dense gilt decoration that includes the Russian imperial arms.
Principal pictorial content comprises two full-page portraits and 22 chromolitho plates – one of which is reproduced above – while the text is printed in black, blue and red and incorporates decorative initials and other illustrations.
The sale also produced a bid of $19,500 (£13,730) for three framed architectural drawings in ink and watercolours that depict the Riding School of the Imperial House Guards in St Petersburg.
Dated to c.1804, they were the work of Giacomo Quarenghi (1744-1817), an Italian neo-classical architect and painter best known for the numerous works he produced in Russia’s then capital during and immediately after the reign of Catherine the Great.
