Russia 1674: Facsimile limited to 50 copies

Erik Palmquist:

”Någre widh sidste kongl. ambassaden till tzaren i Muskou giorde observationer öfwer Ryszland, dess wägar, pasz med fästningar och gräntzer. Sammandragne aff Erich Palmquist anno 1674”.

(Manuscript, 1674.) Collotype facsimile of Palmquist’s manuscript. Stockholm, Generalstabens litografiska anstalt, [1898]. Oblong folio. (43 x 56 cms.) [36] leaves. Partly with full-page illustrations, 2 of which are hand-coloured (map of Moscow, a page of military banners). Contemporary half calf, somewhat worn, spine with slight damage to head and foot, red edges (G. Hedberg).

Erik Palmqvist (b. early 1650s, died in 1676) was a Swedish officer who accompanied count Gustaf Oxenstierna to Moscow in 1673. Upon his return to Sweden in 1674 he presented to the King his ”Observations”, an album with 28 leaves of pictures and maps still preserved in the National Archives. The present facsimile of the manuscript, an important source on 17th-century Russia, was published in 1898 by K. Sandgren och A. Lagrelius. The edition was limited to just 50 copies, 2 of which were hand-coloured throughout and presented to the Swedish King and to the Russian Czar. Only the military banners were coloured in most of the remaining copies, but in the present case (an unnumbered copy) the map of Moscow is coloured as well.

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