Sold at Christie’s 29 November 1995
Lot Description
SPAFAR’EV, Leonti Vasilevich (1765-1845). Atlas Finskago Zaliva…Atlas of the Gulf of Finland…compiled by the Director of light houses Major General knight Leonty Spafarieff. St Petersburg: Engraved and printed in the Naval printing office, 1823.
2° (650 x 510mm). Engraved title in Russian, French and English, one page of engraved description with an emblematic tail-piece, 12 engraved charts of the gulfs of Finland and Bothnia, most double-page or folding, showing the position of lighthouses and soundings, the charts number I-V, VII-XII with one unnumbered, with lighthouses coloured in red, one engraved plate of a lighthouse tower and lamp, on guards throughout, lithographed privilege leaf in Russian dated 1813 on back paste-down granting permission for the work to be published in foreign languages. Contemporary red half russia (rubbed), upper cover with russia title label. Provenance: Count Viktor Pavlovich Kochubei (book-label).
An interesting atlas for the navigational use in the Gulf of Finland in the early Nineteenth century. The first issue of this atlas appeared in 1814 (British Library copy) and appears to have been sold slowly over many years with some editions as late as the 1840’s. In this copy the final date number appears to have been amended in manuscript. Phillips 3120 (dated 1821)