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| Keywords: 1787 Wall Map of the Russian Empire - Geographicus - Russia-ukn-1787.jpg A scarce and spectacular monumentally proportioned 1787 Map of Russia by an unknown yet masterful cartographer Renders the full sprawling extant of the Russian Empire from the Black Sea to the northwestern parts of the American Continent Alaska in extraordinary detail The inland detail throughout is superb noting cities villages and forts as well as political distinctions mountains rivers and seas Displays the river systems of Siberia and central Russia with surprising accuracy and detail Far to the east this map exhibits a fairly accurate rendering of Kamtschatka Alaska and the Aleutian islands suggesting that the cartographer had access to both the cartographic data gathered by Cook and the work of Behring and other Russian explores Sakhalin is rendered as two separate islands though save for that fact fairly accurately The rendering of Hokkaido though incomplete is also somewhat accurate There are extensive explorer ™s annotations along the Arctic shores of Russia A large decorative title cartouche at the top center roughly at the North Pole depicts a torch bearing woman in a Hellenic style white robe She illuminates a globe and three cherubs two of which are working on geographic texts while the third supports a large banner bearing the title Two further decorative engravings decorate the extreme lower right and lower left hand corners of the map The engraving in lower left hand corner of the map consists of a monumental obelisk supporting the armorial crests of Russia ™s most important cities including Moscow Kiev and Riga In the lower right hand corner a gigantic broken Doric column provides the backdrop for a classically garbed woman holding a flag displaying the Imperial Russian Double Eagle in one hand and a map in the other She gazes to her right as the Greek god Hermes reclining upon a cloud reaches for the flag she holds Cannons armor and other military paraphernalia lie scattered about in the foreground and sailing ships ply the seas in the background All in all the staggering scope and detail of this map can bear almost limitless study and examination We have been able to identify only three other examples of this map at Harvard University McMaster University Library and in the British Museum 1787 dated Size in 71 33 object history credit line accession number Russia-ukn-1787 Independent Issue Geographicus-source PD-Art-100 Old maps of the Russian Empire 1787 maps Maps in Latin | ||||
