Our Notes & References

A lovely example of a fine, productive collaboration between “the most important Ukrainian graphic artist of the twentieth century” (Katchanovski) and the “pioneer of art publishing in Russia” (Iuniverg, our translation here and elsewhere).

Founder of the first Russian publishing house specialising in fine arts, Iosif Knebel (1854-1926) aimed at changing the production of children’s books in Russia by creating a wide range of works of high quality and artistic merit.

The celebrated Ukrainian artist Egor/Georgii Narbut (1886-1920) created series of illustrations for Knebel’s various editions of works by Ivan Krylov (1768-1844), the primary Russian fabulist, whose fables are “among the top achievements of Russian literature” (Terras); they “stand out in the grand Euro-American tradition including Aesop and La Fontaine and […] became part of the texture of everyday Russian life” (Cornwell). For the present edition, Narbut illustrates the fables Lzhets [The Liar], Krestianin i smert [The Peasant and Death], Fortuna i nishchii [Fortune and the Pauper].

Thanks to a black-and-white silhouette technique with subtle undertones of brown and grey backgrounds, Narbut’s laconic and elegant chromolithographic illustrations offer a curious interpretation of Empire aesthetics, contemporary to Krylov and to Narbut’s important artistic inspiration, count Fedor Tolstoi (1783-1873).

Provenance

Veìra de Ribaupierre (most likely an émigré member of the Russian aristocratic family of Swiss descent; possibly a descendant of Count Aleksandr Ivanovich Ribaupierre (1781-1865), a courtier, diplomat and privy councillor; or a relative of Count Georgii Ivanovich Ribaupierre (1854-1916), a patron of the arts and a wrestler, one of the founders of the Russian Olympic movement; inscription to upper margin of first leaf).

Bibliography

N. Cornwell, Reference Guide to Russian Literature, p. 471; Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literature, p. 138; Leonid Iuniverg, “Iosif Knebel – pioner khudozhestvenno-izdatelskogo dela v Rossii”, Lekhaim, #6 (218), 2010; Leonid Iuniverg, “Knebel i Narbut (Iz istorii russkoi detskoi knigi nachala XX veka)”, Almanakh bibliofila, #XII, 1982, pp. 226-236; Katchanovski, Ivan; Kohut, Zenon E.; Nebesio, Bohdan Y.; Yurkevich, Myroslav, Historical Dictionary of Ukraine, June 15, 2014, p. 125.