[Russia] James, Rev. John, Thomas.
[6 lithographs from the work "Views in Russia, Sweden, Poland and Germany"]
London. John Murray. 1826- 1827. 2 hand coloured plates. Image areas 17,5 x 26 cm and 19 x 26 cm. Trimmed to image and mounted on backing papers + 4 uncoloured plates. Image areas 11,5 x 19 cm, 14 x 26 cm, 17 x 26 cm and 17 x 26 cm and 28 x 43,5 cm. With margins 28 x 43 cm.
Two plates are watermarked "Fellows 1824". The uncoloured plates have large margins. The backing paper of the hand coloured images with a few tears and creases. The lower left corner of the Kremlin plate is torn. A couple of creases on the Smolensk plate. No staining or foxing. Nice condition.
One of the hand coloured views depict Smolensk in ruins after the french occupation. The other hand couloured plate show the Nikolskaija, tower in the Kremlin wall in Moscow. It looks damaged, pherhaps by the french army? A special dream like effect has been achieved by printing on blue/grey speckled paper, before hand coloring these two lithographs. Quite unusual. Two of the uncoloured ones are from St. Petersburg - the church Kazanskij on Nevskij Prospekt and the Lomonov Bridge accross the Fontanka. The remaining two I have not been able to locate. Seems to be smaller country towns. All the images have a strange emptiness or mystique to them, almost as film sets, very different in style to most other views of 19th century. They were published for the work "Views in Russia, Sweden, Poland and Germany", by Reverend John Thomas James. He travelled across Europe in the years 1813 and 1814, right at the end of the Napoleonic wars, and died in 1828 serving as bishop in Calcutta. The complete work contains 21 lithographs, most of them of Russia. Quite rare views.
Item No: 3876
