KRAFT, Georg Wolfgang (German 1701-1754), Podlinnoye i obstoyatelnoye opisaniye postroyennogo v Sankt-Peterburge v genvare mesyatse 1740 goda ledyanogo doma... [Genuine and Comprehensive Description of Built in Saint Petersburg during the Month of January of the Year 1740 Ice Palace...]. Saint Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1741. 4to (215 x 165 mm). First Russian edition. Cyrillic types with roman and gothic, woodcut initial, typographical ornaments. Six folding engraved plates. Restored paper wrappers.

The earliest detailed account of the Ice Palace, describing and illustrating the famous example commissioned by Empress Anna Ioannovna, designed by Eropkin, and built on the Neva in January of 1740. It comprised three rooms furnished with benches, tables, chairs, candelabra, statues, and a bed, all made of ice, with windows of the thinnest ice looking out on a courtyard with trees, fountains, and working cannons, all again made of ice. The book was originally written in German and published simultaneously in Russian, German, and French.

LITERATURE
N. Soloviov, Redkiye Knigi. Cat. no 105, (Saint Petersburg, 1910), p. 18, no. 190
V. Giroud, St. Petersburg, A portrait of a Great City, Yale University
Anderes, Ice Palaces, (1983), p. 11-15