RICARD DE MONTFERRAND (Auguste). Description of the great be - Lot 278

RICARD DE MONTFERRAND (Auguste). Description of the great bell of Moscow. Livre dans lequel on apprend à cognoistre les procédés ingénieux au moyen desquels l'ouvrier est parvenu à l'exhumerer des cavités de la terre, et à la poser sur son piédestal à l'étonnement et grande satisfaction de tous. Paris, Thierry frères, 1840; in-folio, fawn half-calf, corners, spine decorated with gilt fillets (scratches). (Contemporary binding). First plate titled in black. 1 false title in black, 3 chromolithographed leaves by Engelmann (title, dedication, epistle to the reader) in imitation of illuminated manuscripts, 2 leaves of text in black, 11 pp. of text in an engraved frame, 7 descriptive plates of the bell and its elevation and 2 views of the bell (extraction and on pedestal at Place du Kremlin) lithographed after drawings by Ricard de Montferrand. This very rare publication describes the large bell cast in 1733 during the reign of Empress Anna Ivanovna, which lay buried for over a century before being unearthed and raised on Kremlin Square on August 4, 1836 under Emperor Nicholas I. Ricard de Montferrand supervised the erection work. With a letter dated October 1856 from the author to Léon GODARD (1825-1863), priest-traveler and future canon of Algiers, who published "Pétersbourg et Moscou, souvenirs du couronnement d'un tzar" in 1858.