Our Notes & References

A very rare work, complete with its 24 colour lithographed plates of the top Russian Hussars. A pleasant example of the first edition, showing the fine costumes in a large folio format; from the Bobins collection, with the upper wrapper preserved.

In 1775, Catherine II ordered the formation of a Life Guard Hussar Squadron at her court. By the time this album was published, the squadron had evolved into a regiment and participated in the Second Anti-French Coalition (1798–1802), the Napoleonic wars, the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, and the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830–31 (cf. Koltsov).

In 1859, the Imperial Army commander Konstantin Manzei published his four-volume Istoriia… [History of His Majesty’s Life Guard Hussar Regiment. 1775–1857]. The present album was apparently conceived as its supplement, though this isn’t indicated in the four-volume work. The illustrations were prepared by the artist Petr Gubarev (1818-after 1874), much in the style of Piratskii, and lithographed by M. Baryshev, V. Konrad, and Neiland, “staff of the drawing and lithography departments of the Editorial Office of the Russian Military Chronicles, established around 1855-57” (Koltsov).

The finely executed plates show the uniforms and equipment of the Life Guard Hussars throughout their history, from 1775 to the early years of Alexander II’s reign. They range from a general to senior officers, staff officers, privates and buglers—in full dress, field, and everyday uniforms, many on horseback. Gold-embroidered monograms of Catherine II (“E A”), Paul I (“P I”), Alexander I (“A I”), Nicholas I (“N”), and Alexander II (“A II”) are nicely visible on various elements of dress.

V. Koltsov’s detailed study published in 2011 examines each plate from the copy held by the Petr Alabin Samara Regional Museum. Koltsov notes that some of Gubarev’s illustrations were later reproduced by Jose Maria Bueno in Vladimir Zvegintsov’s self-published Russkaia armiia. L’Armee russe. 1700-1917 (1967-80), and that Sergei Okhliabinin reproduced in 1994 “poor-quality chromolithographic copies in his book Chest mundira [The Honour of the Uniform], crediting the illustrations to himself”. A reedition of most of the plates from this first edition was also published in 2016.

Very rare, with no copies traced at auction, including in Russia and including the 4-vol. Istoriia. In addition to the Samara holding, we could locate two copies in Russia libraries, at RGB (Moscow) and RNB (St Petersburg), both catalogued together with Manzei’s Istoriia. Outside Russia, only two copies traced (Harvard and LoC, catalogued separately from their holdings of Istoriia; NYPL and the University of British Columbia hold only the Istoriia).

Provenance

From the collection of Norman Bobins (b. 1942, American bibliophile who built one of the largest and best collection of colour-plate books).

Bibliography

Bobins 193 (this copy); Colas 1269; Koltsov V. V. Risunki obmundirovaniia polkov Leib-gvardii Gusarskogo, Ulanskogo i Kirasirskogo Ego Velichestva: Litograficheskie albomy iz sobraniia SOIKM im. P. V. Alabina, Samara, 2011.