1b. Карта генеральная Российской империи на сорок ордну Губернию раздѣленной. [General Map of the Russian Empire Divided into Forty-one Provinces].

• Main Author: Aleksandr Mikhailovich Wilbrecht Александр Михайлович Вильбрехт (1757 - 1823)
• Format: Map
• Language: unknown
• Published: Географический департамент [Geographical Department], 1800
• Subjects: Gulf of Alaska; Plano; Kamchatka; Alaska
• Online Access: https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~356353~90123259; https://media.davidrumsey.com/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size4/RUMSEY~8~1/213/15850004.jpg

Very large 3-sheet map of the Russian Empire including Alaska, with large inset map of the Gulf of Alaska and northern BC Coast: Карта представляющая частьзападного берега Америки от полуострова Аляски до залива Нутки положеннаго по новейшим открытиям зделанным Российскими и Английскими мореплавателями в 1784, 1786 и 1787 годах. [A Map Representing Part of the Western Coast of America from the Alaska Peninsula to Nootka Bay based on the Latest Discoveries made by Russian and English Navigators in the years 1784, 1786 and 1787]. "Folio Atlas, but here with Complete Contents contemporarily left unbound and presented as 47 separate copper engraved leaves, each with contemporary pink paper edging. Extremely rare and historically important – the finest Enlightenment Era atlas of the Russian Empire, being the second edition of the work, made on the orders of Czar Paul I to present his new jurisdictional reforms, created by Aleksandr Mikhailovich Wilbrecht, the Chief Geographer and Cartographer to the Imperial Court, from the best sources and surveys, a complete example with 43 maps and 2 preliminary leaves, including a giant 3-sheet general map of the Russian Empire with an important inset depicting the Gulf of Alaska and northern British Columbia coasts, dozens of maps of individual Russian ‘gubernia’ (provinces) of unprecedented accuracy, as well as a map focusing upon Alaska and Kamchatka predicated upon intelligence gained from numerous Russian and British exploring expeditions; all maps beautifully decorated with allegorical cartouches, with text in Russian Cyrillic, published in St. Petersburg by the Czar’s Geographical Department; an extraordinary example clearly never bound, but preserved ‘in plano’ with all leaves with original outline hand colour and contemporary pink paper edging. This work is the finest Enlightenment Era atlas of the Russian Empire (which then included Alaska), and one of the foundational monuments of Russian scientific cartography and geographic intelligence. It is the revised second ...