Skazka ob Ivane-carevice, Tsar-ptice io serom volke

St. Petersburg: State Printing Company for Securities [Expeditsii Zagotovleny Gosudarstvennukh Bumag], 1901. First edition. Stiff Wraps. Orig. illustrated chromolithographic front cover and back covers. Near fine. 12 pages. 32.5: 25.5 cm. Original cover chromolithograph, three full-page chromolithographs, four smaller chromos in the text, plus decorative borders. Bilibin was inspired after visiting the visiting the exhibition in the winter of 1898, where he had seen pictures of Viktor Vasnecow fairy-tale motifs. In the summer of 1899 he spent his holidays in the countryside, filled with forests, lakes, and weathered wooden houses, and began work on his friend's country estate with his first fairy-tale illustrations. Clean, bright and crisp copy, slight rub to upper front cover corner, and lower extremity of backstrip.