Nouvelle Collection de quarante-trois Vues de Saint-Pétersbourg et des ses Environs,

A scarce edition in contemporary boards with the plan hand-coloured.

Pluchart (1777-1827) came to Russia from Braunschweig in 1806 following an invitation to become the director of the typography of the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the early 1810s he opened his own company in central Saint Petersburg where he printed and sold his works.

Among Pluchart's best known works are attractive albums of large format lithographs, such as the present one, showing views of Saint Petersburg, drawn and lithographed by the best Russian artists, including A. Orlowskiy, K. Kolman and P. Alexandrov. Such albums were published by Pluchart from 1820 to 1827 to meet the demand of the increased number of tourists to the city in the early years of the nineteenth century. The present edition with 43 plates is particularly scarce, with only two copies in institutions.

This album gathers all the significant monuments of the Russian capital aimed to display the city's architectural splendour to foreign visitors. The plates include views of The Winter Palace, Kazan Cathedral, St Isaac's, The Summer Garden, The Fortress of St Peter and Paul, The Royal Exchange, the Imperial Theatre, Tsarskoe Selo, the Tauride Palace and the Neva.