TOLSTOY LEO: (1828-1910) Russian Writer of the masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina. A rare, large vintage ...

TOLSTOY LEO: (1828-1910) Russian Writer of the masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina. A rare, large vintage signed and inscribed 10 x 15 photograph of Tolstoy seated in a three quarter length pose wearing his familiar dark peasant's tunic. Photograph published by Joseph Daziaro of Moscow and with his small printed label neatly affixed to the base of the verso. Signed by Tolstoy in Cyrillic across the lower part of the image and dated Yalta, 26th December 1901 in his hand. Signed photographs of Tolstoy of this size are particularly rare and desirable. The signature and inscription partially run across a darker area of the image and the text is a little light although legible. Some light overall age wear and minor scuffing to the image, G £4000-6000 The present photograph is inscribed to Pavel Alexandrovich Boulanger (1865-1925) Russian Railway official, a friend of Tolstoy and Tolstoyan Disciple. Boulanger was employed by the Moscow-Kursk Railway company and helped to arrange transport to the Crimea in the summer of 1901, where Tolstoy had been ordered to convalesce by his doctor following an illness. Tolstoy signed this photograph in 1901, the year that he was selected to receive the first Nobel Prize for Literature. In October he had turned down the honour believing that the prize money would bring unwanted complications to his life.