Entertainments | PY Rare Books

Image for GEISSLER, GRUBER & RICHTER. Russian Folk Amusements. First edition, Leipzig 1801. Complete with hand-coloured plates #2

Partying in late 18th-c. Russia

GEISSLER, [Christian Gottfried Heinrich], J.G. GRUBER and J. RICHTER

Russische Volke-Vergnügungen [Russian Folk Amusements]

Leipzig, Im Industrie Comptoir, [1801]. £5,750

Very rare large-format plates in striking colours, by a master of the genre. Last copy traced on the market: in 1931, incomplete.

Image for TRAUBERG & KHODASEVICH. Akter amerikanskogo kino [Actor of American Cinema]. First edition, Leningrad, 1927. #2

"Through the USA - to the USSR" (p. 10)

TRAUBERG, Il[ia] and V[alentina] KHODASEVICH (artist)

Akter amerikanskogo kino [The Actor in American Cinema]

Leningrad, Academia, 1927. £750

First edition of this scarce, developed study of American cinema in the 1920s. A pleasant copy, in its original photomontage wrappers.

Image for PICASSO, GONCHAROVA, LARIONOV etc. Grand Bal Travesti - Transmental. First edition, Paris, 1923. #2

The complete set

LARIONOV, M[ikhail], Nataliia GONCHAROVA, Ilia ZDANEVICH, [Pablo] PICASSO and others

Grand Bal Travesti / Transmental [Programme, Ticket and Handbill]

Francois Bernouard for Union des Artistes Russes, Paris, 1923. £1,950

Lovely gathering of three 'ephemera' items produced for the first Russian ball of the avant-garde in Paris - an eclectic show with music and dances in newly designed costumes. With Larionov's ticket, Goncharova's handbill and the famous programme with many artistic contributions.

Image for Gd Duke Mikhail Mikhailovich ROMANOV. Musical Sketches, Potpurri. Manuscript, 1888. #2

La Marseillaise, European operas, and romantic Russian songs

[ROMANOV, Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich] – TSVETKOV M. and Vasilii KITAEV (artist)

Muzykalnyia stsenki. Popuri [Musical Sketches. Potpourri]

Skt. Peterburg, [8 November] 1888. £8,750

An interesting compilation of various international and Russian music, all manuscript, with a lovely watercolour title page and all kept in a refined master binding: a very attractive imperial portfolio made for the Grand Duke. Very rare.

Image for BALLETS RUSSES: BARBIER and YORKE, Three works, First editions, 1913-20. #2

Dancing stars in more than 30 pochoir plates and attractively bound

BARBIER, George, and Arabella YORKE (artists), Jean-Louis VAUDOYER, Francis de MIOMANDRE and Cyril BEAUMONT

Album dédié à Tamar Karsavina [BOUND WITH] The Art of Lydia Lopokova [BOUND WITH] Designs on the Dances of Vaslav Nijinsky

I. Paris, Collections Pierre Corrard; II & III. London, C. W. Beaumont, 1914, 1920 and 1913. £12,500

Scarce gathering of Yorke's beautiful and rare publication and both Barbier's 'albums', all bound at the time in a fine blue calf signed binding - a fine volume indeed.

Image for FOSSATI & BARATTI. Currus triumphales..., First edition, in colour; Venice, 1782. #2

Russians in Venice, celebrated with merchants, peoples of the world and bullfighting

FOSSATI, Giorgio and Domenico, [with] Antonio BARATTI

Currus triumphales ad adventum clarissimorum Moschoviae principum Pauli Petrovitz et Mariae Theodorownae conjugis regali orandum spectaculo in Divi Marci venetiarum foro die 22 Januarii anno MDCCLXXXI

Venezia, si vende alla Casa di Fossati in Castelforte a S. Rocco, [1782]. £22,500

Fine and scarce Italian "livre de fêtes" with beautiful contemporary colour - with an added suite of prints related to the same event, the Venitian reception of the future Tsar of Russia.

Image for Russian optical theatre in Moscow during Pushkin's time #1

Optical theatre in 1830s Moscow

MISHO, Genrikh

Mekhanicheskii Teatr Sveta. Obiavlenie [Mechanical Theatre of Light. Announcement]

Mosk. Vedomosti, Mosk. Universitet, Moskva, 1833. £500

Rare broadside for series of entertainments in Moscow, including an optical theatre of animated figures by a versatile performer and craftsman.

Image for Illustrated broadside for an optical theatre in Moscow #1

Optical theatre in 1830s Moscow

KUPARENKO, Iordakii

Kinetozograficheskie vidy. Obiavlenie [Kinetozographic Views. Announcement]

Mosk. Vedomosti, Mosk. Universitet, Moskva, 1834. £650

Rare broadside for an impressive Russian kinetozographic theatre of 400 animated figures in Pushkin's Moscow, by a hot-air balloon enthusiast now in the Guinness World Records.

Tolstoy the playwright

TOLSTOY, Lev

Pervyi vinokur ili kak chertenok kraiushku zasluzhil. Komediia [The First Distiller, or How the Little Devil Earned his Crust. A Comedy]

I.D. Sytin for Posrednik, Moskva, 1886. £1,750

First edition of Tolstoy's successful play on wine and some of its effects... Lovely example in wrappers. Scarce.

Image for [JAZZ IN USSR] SAKHAROV G. Jazzy translation. Samizdat, USSR, ca. 1976-80. More than 300 leaves. #2

Out of stock

How Western jazz was reaching Brezhnev's USSR

SAKHAROV, G[ennadii] (editor)

Dzhazovye perevody [...]: Leroi Dzhenkins, "Kompani", Devid Murrei, Dzhorzh Liuis, Giunter Khampel [Jazzy Translations [...]: Leroy Jenkins, "Company", David Murray, George Lewis, Gunter Hampel]

[Soviet Union, ca. 1976-80].

Rare thick Soviet samizdat on Western jazz, giving a glimpse of the material circulated in innovative, underground circles of the late USSR.

Image for Broadsides on animal fighting in 1830s Russia #1

Out of stock

Now extinct dogs fighting in 1830s Moscow

[BAITING DOGS]

Obiavlenie [Announcement]

Mosk. Vedomosti, Mosk. Universitet, Moskva, 1833.

Two consecutive illustrated Russia broadsides announcing different rounds of large wild animal baiting in Pushkin's 1830s Moscow, involving the now-extinct Medelyan dogs.

Image for [BAKST] - ALEXANDRE, A. and J. COCTEAU. L'Art décoratif de Léon Bakst. First edition, 1913. #2

Out of stock

Beautiful copy in its striking binding

[BAKST] – ALEXANDRE, Arsène and Jean COCTEAU

L'Art décoratif de Léon Bakst

De la More Press, Londres, for Maurice de Brunoff, Paris, 1913.

The earliest, largest and most impressive work on Bakst's striking art. A fine, fresh example, in its great art-déco binding.

Login