Arkady Viktorovich Ippolitov (1958−2023) - writer, art critic, curator, curator of the Hermitage cabinet of Italian engravings, long-term friend and author of “The Session”. This book was published in memory of him; the last text that Arkady Ippolitov sent to the editors of “Seance” was a lecture on Western art at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: décadisme, Belle Époque, Art Nouveau. The illustrations were selected by the author himself.