Album of original mural and embroidery designs.

£15,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

with 60 original watercolours A unique and important album of original Ukrainian Petrykivka and embroidery designs from the 1920s. This is an exceptional record of folk paintings from different areas around Ukraine drawn by an unknown hand and captioned in German. The majority of the watercolours are traditional ornamental mural designs, for these the village is noted as well as where in the house they are found such as 'between the windows in the hut' or 'above the stove'. The embroidery designs are annotated with notes such as, 'according to patterns from the 18th century' and the regions (or peoples) where the style originates from such as 'from the foot of the Carpathians', Pokuttia, Lviv region, Polesia, Bukovyna and the Hutsul. There are also a few patterns for men's shirts which are described by the artist as '[my] own design'. The sixty incredible watercolours are all exceptionally bright and display a broad range of styles, showing the differences between the regions. Many are intrinsically important to Ukrainian heritage such as the Derevo Zhyttia [Tree of Life], poppies and geometric patterns. Most of the villages featured are either near Uman in Cherkasy or in the Dnipropetrovsk region, with a few in Kyiv. Two are from the village of Petrykivka which is where the tradition of mural painting originated. The decorative painting style which dates back to the 18th century was common in many villages of the Dnipropetrovsk region (as well as other regions of Ukraine) bu

• Binding: Hardcover

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