Les chasses au Caucase ... Okhoty Kavkaza

[St. Petersburg]: Vilborg for A. Jacovlev, 1900. Folio. (16 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches). Text in two columns in Russian and French. 192 photographic plates on 100 sheets. Publisher's green cloth, covers blocked in blind, upper cover lettered in gilt, rebacked retaining the original spine, decorative endpapers.

Provenance: Norman Whitehouse (armorial bookplate); F. P. Williamson (bookplate)

First edition recording the imperial hunting parties in the Caucasus: one of the greatest books on sporting in Russia.

Produced for the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900, the author served as an officer in the 16th Caucasus Grenadiers and evidently as a guide for imperial hunting expeditions. He describes the region, listing the various animals that can be found, including deer, wild boar, game birds, bears, and mountain goats. The images depict the Imperial family participating in hunts, including Tsar Alexander III (1845-94) and his son, the future Tsar Nicholas II (1868-1918), as well as Tsar Alexander III's cousins, the Grand Dukes Nikolay Mikhailovich, Georgiy Mikhailovich, Sergey Mikhailovich and Petr Nikolaevich, and Alexander III's uncle, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich.

Thiébaud 529.