Beschreibung:

[MILITARY. ALBUM.] Kniga soderzhashchaia chertezhi upotrebliaemykh nine artileriiskikh orudii s prinadlezhnostiami onykh umenyshennye protiv natural'nykh v 8iu doliu, delannaia pri Vtomrom Kadetskom Korpuse, kadetami onogo v klassse Shatb-kapitana Efimova vtorogo . [An album of drawings of weapons and their accessories, drawn from nature by the Second Cadets Corps.] St Petersburg, 1800. A superb album of fine military drawings, almost certainly made for Paul I, in a signed presentation binding of red morocco, and later in Alexander II's collection . In the year that this remarkable album was executed, on 10 March 1800, the Engineering Gentry Cadets Corps was renamed the Second Cadets Corps by order of Paul I. His monogram appears on the title, and the quality and scale of both the illustrations and the binding, signed by Reeb, all suggest that the album was made for Paul. The artillery shown appears to be of the standard produced in 1797 for the Gatchina Artillery Troops, which were under the direct command of Paul I. These drawings may fill a gap in the military history of the Russian empire since, apparently, 'even the State Archive of the Military and Historical Museum of Artillery in St. Petersburg does not have charts of the arms of the 1797 standard' (Yurkevich). Yurkevich, E.I., Artilleriia Gatchinskikh voisk v.k. Pavla Petrovicha , (PhD. thesis, St. Petersburg State University, 2003) p.22. Oblong 2° (487 x 647mm). Pen and ink and watercolour title and 94 drawings each signed in ink by a member of the Corps, and manuscript part titles, on paper watermarked 'C & I Honig'. (A small repair in the title.) Contemporary red morocco by Frederic Reeb of St. Petersburg with his stamp, flat spine richly gilt in compartments, the sides with gilt border incorporating a greek key and floral tools, the upper side centred with a green morocco presentation label, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, binder's blanks watermarked 'J. Whatman 1794'; in a later, finely made, red morocco case tooled in gilt to echo the binding, the upper side with an acrylic window, lined with green velour (expertly rebacked preserving the original spine, light staining on the sides). Provenance: ?Paul I of Russia (binding, title) -- Alexander II of Russia (bookplate) -- a private European collection (unidentified label).