Iacovleff, Alexander. - Drawings and paintings... Lot 348

Iacovleff, Alexander. - Drawings and paintings of Africa. Executed during the Citroën expedition to Central Africa. Second Haardt Audouin-Dubreuil mission. Paris, Jules Meynial, under the direction of Lucien Vogel, 1927. In-folio, in a wallet with flaps covered with a full Marrakech filali skin with author and title stamped on the first cover, leather laces - 1 booklet of [18 ff.], bound in black silk, the first cover painted, spine in fawn leather, with travel notes and sketches in black, and a suite of 50 plates in colour. Edition at 1020 numbered copies, 1/1000 copies printed on Madagascar-Lafuma for the travel notes and on Lafuma pure rag vellum for the hors-texte plates (n° 693). Enthused by the two books Iacovleff had published on the Far East, André Citroën asked him to become the official artist for the trans-African expedition he was setting up and for which he wanted to recruit scientific staff. The expedition was to cross the Sahara, Niger, Chad, Oubangui-Chari and Congo-Nile, and to create a link with the remote French territories of Djibouti and Madagascar. It was supported by the government and the most important French scientific institutions (the Geographical Society, the National Museum of Natural History). The Minister of Fine Arts asked Iacovleff to "fix with a paintbrush the indigenous habits and customs that are disappearing". The expedition travelled 28,000 kilometres between 28 October 1924 and 26 June 1925. The artist brought back 300 drawings and portraits in charcoal, sepia and red chalk.