Guestbook [Gaestbuch] for familia Kanicky-Cachrov

1917-1939. Full Calf. Very Good. With colorful, insouciant whimsical vignettes, and larger, watercolors throughout. We count 55 separate illustrations, on 50 pages with content. But one could dicker over whether particular illustrations are one or two, given how sometimes they overlap or are arranged with a collage-like sensibility. Let's just say there are illustrations, sometimes two or more, on most pages with text. The artwork was almost certainly done by a single hand, and thus we presume it was Olga Kanicky's. Olga was married to Leopold Karnicky-Cachrov, who was a mining engineer. They were also obviously rather affluent, with a busy social calendar that included masques and the like. While this is actually called a guestbook on the third numbered page, its purpose would appear to have evolved somewhat, and Olga thus also chronicled the guests at various parties, some of which seem not to have been at her home, or hosted by her or her husband. Arand for virtually all of these occasions, there was painting at least one whimsical, often quite amusing, illustration. The guests were drawn from the farther reaches of the Austro-Hungarian and German empires, it would seem, with many Slavic/Czech names, in addition to German-sounding ones. Guests at times left brief notes, which in the early pages were usually done in German, and to a lesser extent, Czech, but one comes across French and English inscriptions as well. In 1939 the Kanicky's life as they knew it clearly came to an abrupt end, as the Second World War commenced with Hitler's blitzkrieg. Olga Kanicky ultimately settled in New Hampshire, where she passed away in 1991, aged 97. Condition: calf is fairly heavily scuffed or rubbed, especially along edges, joints, where blindstamped ruling. Some light ash-y soiling on leaves with content, not to a level one is likely to consider disconcerting.