Andrei Grabar Christian iconography: a study of its origins. Princeton University Press,
Princeton: 1968.

André Grabar Christian Iconography: a Study of its Origins. The AW Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1961. Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1968 // 432 p.
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Andrey Grabar Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins. Andrew Mellon Lectures on Fine Arts, 1961. Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1968 // 432 p.

A careful edition of the original text of Andrej Grabar's remarkable work, commissioned and assisted by Andrew Mellon Fine Arts Lectures; The publication was made possible by donations from the foundations of the wealthy financier, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Mellon (1855-1937) and his daughter Ailsa Mellon Bruce (1901-1969); An excellent hardcover copy; A huge amount of numbered black and white images with references to the main text, brought together in a purpose-built appendix; Color inserts in the text; Excellent printing and preservation.

Andrey Nikolaevich Grabar (1896-1990) is undoubtedly among the most prominent art historians of the 1914th century. Although he spent most of his life in France, he retained his affiliation with the Russian school in the study of Christian art – his first teachers at the Imperial Petrograd University (the official name of today's St. Petersburg State University between 1917 and 1844) were Acad. Prof. Nikodim Kondakov (1925-1862) and his student Art.-Cor. Prof. Dmitry Ainalov (1939-XNUMX).

Andrey Grabar's interest in the origins of Christian iconography was created already in his student years in Petrograd under the influence of the works of Nikodim Kondakov, above all the innovative "Iconography of the Mother of God" (item 1: Petrograd, 1914; item 2: Petrograd, 1915 ). In addition to the book presented here, Grabar wrote several other remarkable works* on early Christian art and on the origins of Christian historiography, which are still being reprinted to this day. A distinctive feature of Grabar's works on medieval Christian art is the excellent knowledge, among other things, of the monuments of Balkan Christian art, which is one of the distinguishing features of the Russian school in the study of medieval Christian art.

Andrei Grabar's creative path is directly related to Bulgaria, as is well known. At the beginning of 1920, the director of the National Museum, Andrey Protich (1875-1959), appointed him curator with the task of describing and cataloging the medieval artistic and architectural monuments on the territory of Bulgaria. Young Grabar honorably fulfilled this difficult task until the fall of 1922, when he left for Strasbourg to teach Russian there. Traveling around Bulgaria is under extremely difficult conditions – the lack of sufficiently developed public transport forces the young scientist to reach the objects of his research mostly on foot or, in the best case, hiring donkeys and horses. Almost three years as a curator at the National Museum left a lasting impression on Grabar's future works.

The book Christian Iconography: a Study of its Origins is one of the earliest receipts in the specialized scientific library of the NIM - it was purchased from an antiquarian bookstore in Sofia in October 1976, just a year after the work on the creation of our book depository began. The book is not available in most major Bulgarian libraries. The specimen presented here was actively used in the work of the group of scientists working on the first large-scale international exhibition "Medieval Bulgaria. Art and Civilization' in Paris in 1980.
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*See e.g. The premier Christian art (200-395). Gallimard, Paris: 1966 // 346 p., as well as Les voies de la création en iconographie chrétienne. Antiquité et Moyen age. Flammarion, Paris: 1979 // 341 p.