Skazka o t︠s︡ari︡e︡ Saltani︠e︡ Pl.01
1905
Ivan Bilibin designed this enchanting cover for a collection of Alexander Pushkin's fairy tales, perfectly capturing the 'Bilibin style' that fused Russian folk motifs with Art Nouveau elegance. The composition is a clever mashup of Pushkin's worlds: the famous black cat walks a chain around an oak tree (from *Ruslan and Ludmila*), while thirty-three armored knights rise from the stylized sea waves below, referencing *The Tale of Tsar Saltan*. High in the branches, a witch flies in her mortar and a princess watches, surrounding the central text block with pure folklore magic. Published by the State Paper Expedition in the early 1900s, these illustrations revolutionized Russian book design with their bold outlines and flat, decorative colors.