IACOVLEFF, Alexandre [ i.e. Aleksandr Iakovlev]. Dessins et peintures d'Asie. Exécutés au cours de l'Expedition Citroën Centre-Asie. Troisième mission G.-M. Haardt - L. Audouin-Dubreuil.

IACOVLEFF, Alexandre [ i.e. Aleksandr Iakovlev]. Dessins et peintures d'Asie. Exécutés au cours de l'Expedition Citroën Centre-Asie. Troisième mission G.-M. Haardt - L. Audouin-Dubreuil.IACOVLEFF, Alexandre [i. e. Aleksandr Iakovlev]. Dessins et peintures d'Asie. Excuts au cours de l'Expedition Citron Centre Asie. Troisime mission G. M. Haardt L. Audouin Dubreuil. Paris: Jules Meynial, sous la direction de Lucien Vogel [1934]. Folio. Original ribbon bound printed wrappers; pp. [32, including initial and final blank], 50 colour lithographic plates, each on a bifolium with captions on one half; text with marginal illustrations, all

IACOVLEFF, Alexandre [i.e. Aleksandr Iakovlev]. Dessins et peintures d'Asie. Exécutés au cours de l'Expedition Citroën Centre-Asie. Troisième mission G.-M. Haardt - L. Audouin-Dubreuil. Paris: Jules Meynial, sous la direction de Lucien Vogel [1934].

Folio. Original ribbon-bound printed wrappers; pp. [32, including initial and final blank], 50 colour-lithographic plates, each on a bifolium with captions on one half; text with marginal illustrations, all housed in the publisher's cardboard folder with textile ties, front cover lettered in black and decorated in silver; sides and corners of the portfolio professionally restored with cloth, boards a little toned and with two minor scratches, front cover of wrappers a little crinkled at inner margin and minimally toned, plate 50 a little spotted at upper margin, a few folds of the bifolia with short tears, otherwise very good.

First edition, number 184 of a total printrun of 720 copies, 520 of which were for the trade. Iakovlev was a Russian-born artist specialized in subjects he encountered on his numerous travels. He became artistic advisor to two Citroën motoring expeditions, this being the second from 1931 to 1932 from Beirut to China, led by Georges-Marie Haardt (portrayed on the first plate), who died of pneumonia upon completion in Hongkong.

Along the route from Lebanon into China Iakovleff sketched different types of people, from Sheikh Sattam of the Haddadin (a Christian Arab tribe) of Palmyra, Kurds of Iraq and Persia, a Chaldean woman from Baghdad, Iranians, Afghans, a Turkic man from Herat, people of the Northwest Frontier, and the Pamir mountain range, where the expedition crossed a pass at over 4800 meters altitude, which set the world altitude record for cars. The expedition then descended into Chinese Turkestan, the Gobi desert and finally to the border region of Vietnam and China, especially Tonkin, with the Russian artist constantly drawing the changing ethnicities and their traditional costumes. Several of the portraits were signed by the sitters which adds immediacy to the drawings.

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