Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Limited Edition Boxed Set

This stunning, limited edition three-volume boxed set is housed in a handmade, clothbound archival Solander box--and only this first edition will include a gilcée print signed and numbered by photographer Sergei Vasiliev. The enclosed volumes, previously published on their own, and some out of print, feature drawings and photographs from the extraordinary archives of photographers Danzig Baldaev and Sergei Vasiliev. After losing a number of family members to exile or Gulag, Baldaev--at the suggestion of his imprisoned father, an ethnologist--made the ethnographic study of Russian prison tattoos his life's work. Scouring prisons, hospitals and morgues--to which he had entrée through his work as a prison guard--he captured more than 3,000 tattoos (these volumes weigh in at a combined 1,200 pages) documenting this secret world of signs and symbols, uncovering their hidden meanings and revealing their strange beauty and often surprising level of craft.