The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Translated into English by Edward FitzGerald with Illustrations Photographed from Life Studies by Adelaide Hanscom & Blanche Cumming.
New York: Dodge, 1912. Hardcover. An unopened copy in a finely tooled brown leather Art Nouveau binding with stylized grape vine at the front board, and embossed title above, one of the first American works to be illustrated with fine art photographs. Potter 274 describes this as the "coloured Oriental edition", citing three different bindings; decorative cloth, calf and full morocco.
The volume includes 28 double-mounted photographs of watercolors of 'Persian life-studies', by Adelaide Hanscom (1875 – 1931), American painter and photographer, who published some of the first books using photography as illustration. She used as her models well-known California literary figures including Charles Keeler, Joaquin Miller, George Sterling and George Wharton James. The models' costumes were designed by Orlof Orlow. Hanscom's studio and all the negatives for the images in this volume were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, so the only remaining images from this project are in the books themselves.
4to, not paginated, [160], [28] leaves of plates tipped onto gray card, glassine tissue guards, marbled end papers, teg, rough cut edges.
Boards a bit rubbed, spine slightly chipped at base, a bit of surface chipping along spine edge. Newspaper clipping tipped in at marbled end paper. Besides the expected light wear to such a binding, the book is a very nice copy, very bright and fresh, all plates in very good condition. There are four separately published full page color plates of Rubaiyat illustrations by Willy Pogany, loosely inserted. OCLC: 70459929 records one copy at the University of Alberta.
A rather gorgeous production. Very good overall. Item #22490
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