Les Mosquées de Samarcande. Fascicule I. Gour-Emir.

St. Petersburg.: Expédition pour la Confection des Papiers d'Etat., 1905.. Loose in later portfolio with leather title label to spine, original pictorial blue paper front wrapper with vignette and text in red and black and rear wrapper with publisher's vignette preserved and laid down.. Large folio. (780 x 575 mm).. Leaf with printed dedication in red and black ('à Sa Majesté l'Impératrice Alexandra Féodorowna'), leaf with printed title in red and black and publisher's vignette (matching the front wrapper), two leaves of text with head- and tail-piece, leaf with list of plates adn outline head-piece and 18 lithograph plates, 4 uncoloured, the remainder coloured or partially coloured, 3 folding on two or three leaves; each plate numbered at upper right and with printed title and artist's credit. Parallel text in Russian and French throughout. (Sheet size: 758 x 545 mm). The large and early Russian monograph on the Gour-Emir mausoleum in Samarkand.Produced by the Russian Commission Impériale Archéologique this large-format monograph features outstanding and large colour plates. The Russian studies in this field prepared the way for further extensive Western studies, but this publication remains unsurpassed. Although this was published as fascicule number one of a proposed series, no further fascicules were issued.