Bernhard von Koehne’s Description du musée de feu le Prince Basile Kotschoubey

Sold at Christie’s 30 November 2006

Lot Description
KOEHNE, Bernhard von (1817-1886). Description du musée de feu le Prince Basile Kotschoubey… et recherches sur l’histoire et la numismatique des colonies grecques en Russie. St Petersburg: Imprimerie des papiers de la Couronne, 1857.

2 volumes, 4° (334 x 260mm). 8 chromolithographed plates, 20 engraved plates, wood-engraved illustrations, 3 folding letterpress genealogies. (Spotting.) Contemporary quarter red morocco, gilt edges (slightly soiled, lightly rubbed at extremities).

VERY RARE, ONE OF ONLY 100 COPIES, NONE FOR SALE. ‘A MAGNIFICIENT AND RARE EDITION’ (Gromachevskii). The first full-scale catalogue of ancient coins from Southern Russia. Curator of the Hermitage, Koehne uses the description of one of Europe’s leading collections to publish a detailed survey of ancient Russia, principally around the Black Sea. The colour lithographs show sculptures and inscriptions, while the other plates and illustrations figure ancient coins. ABPC records no copy offered at auction in the past century. Brunet III, 686; Gromachevskii, Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ literatury po russkoi numizmatike (Zhitomir: 1905) 160; Lipsius-Leitzmann II, 68; UCBA I, 1010; see also I. V. Tunkina, ‘The Formation of a Russian Science of Classical Antiquities of Southern Russia in the 18th and early 19th century’ in The Cauldron of Ariantas, ed. by P. G. Bilde and others, Aarhus University Press, 2003, pp. 303-364. (See also lot 111.) (2)

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