CARBURI DE CEFFALONIE Marin Monument élevé à la gloire de Pierre-Le-Grand, ou Relation des travaux et des moyens méchaniques qui ont été employés…

OHR, 2508, fer 8 (citing this copy); Kat. Berlin, no. 1794; Pierre-Charles Levesque, Encyclopédie méthodique. Beaux-Arts, 1788, pp. 262-263; Hoefer, VIII, col. 679; not mentioned by Quentin-Bauchart.

First edition. A superb copy for Marie-Antoinette, bound in red morocco with her coat of arms.

This work relates the transportation of the huge granite block destined to form the base of the equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. The statue had been commissioned by Catherine II from the French sculptor Etienne Falconet. The base, a boulder weighing 600 tonnes and measuring 11 x 6 x 7 metres in height, came from the Gulf of Finland. The block was moved to the seaside, over hills, using ingenious devices such as copper spheres rolling on wooden rails and teams of hundreds of muzhiks pulling cables to the beat of drums. From there, a huge raft tied up between two ships carried the rock across the sea to the mouth of the Neva in St Petersburg. The statue of Peter the Great, on his Finnish rock, still dominates Senate Square in St Petersburg (called ‘Decembrist Square’ after the revolution), facing the Neva.

Marin Carburi (1729-1782), a Greek engineer in the service of Catherine II, went to France after this mission and had this beautifully illustrated work printed. He then returned to Celaphonia (then under the control of Venice) to develop agriculture there but was murdered by his workers in 1782.

A magnificent copy with many prestigious provenances.

Provenance : Marie-Antoinette, Quen of France (1755-1793) – comte de La Béraudière (sale 1885) – Jacques Hennessy (sale 3 july 1929, no. 148) – Librairie Pierre Chrétien – Paul-Louis Weiller (sale Paris, 8 april 2011, lot 672) – Alain Moatti (bookplate).