Description

Aurora Art Publishers, Published 1972. Hardcover, 190 pp; 22 cm; text in English and Russian; illustrated with numerous black-and-white photographic plates and two color plates. In Good Plus condition, no dust jacket. Blue paper-covered boards with gilt laurel wreath and lettering on front; brown faux-leather spine with gilt lettering. Mild shelf wear, small nicks to corner tips, and some color loss along edges. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. Art Deco bookplate of film director George Cukor on front pastedown, a Paul Landacre wood engraving depicting the front of Cukor's home and documented in California Bookplates (Book Club of California, 2006). A study of the first equestrian monument in Russian art, the bronze statue of Peter the Great by the Florentine sculptor Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli (circa 1675-1744), who came to St. Petersburg in 1716 at Peter's invitation and effectively founded the sculptural tradition in Russia. Traces the monument's prolonged history (modeled in Peter's lifetime, cast after Rastrelli's death, and not erected before St. Michael's Castle until 1800) and its place in the European tradition of equestrian monuments from Donatello and Verrocchio onward. The Baroque, imperial-Roman counterpart to Falconet's later Bronze Horseman. Illustrated with views of the statue, Rastrelli's preparatory sketches and models, and related archival material.