Add MS 69460

SEBASTOPOL: 'Plan du port de Sevastopol'; circa 1784. Scale varies. Scale bar of 1200 [toises?] (= 155mm.) gives scale of circa 1:16000, although comparison with a printed map of the area of known scale in Christopher Hibbert, The destruction of Lord Raglan: a tragedy of the Crimean War 1854-55 (1961), p. 94, indicates scale of circa 1:6000. French, with Portuguese inscription. The map shows Sebastopol harbour and the coast as far west as Cape Kherson. A number of civilian and naval installations are marked in plan, and soundings are marked in the harbour and coastal inlets, indicating that the plan was drawn after Sebastopol was made a naval base in 1784. There are no soundings given in the anchorage where the Russian naval vessels are marked and individually named, which suggests that the cartographer did not have access to this area. A detailed key is in the upper right-hand corner of the map. In the upper left-hand corner is an inscription in Portuguese in a hand different from that of the key, reading 'Para a Secretaria de Estado das Negocios Estrangeiros acuzada no P.S. do Officio de 29 de Junho de 1788. No. 48'. The detail of soundings, naval installations and water supply marked along the harbour and the coastal approaches everywhere except the Russian naval anchorage, together with the inscription in Portuguese, may indicate that the map was the product of a partly clandestine mission to investigate possible hostile approaches to Sebastopol and Russian strengths or weaknesses in the area. See Sotheby's sale-cat., 23 Jan. 1989, lot 202. Purchased from Alfieri, June 1989.

Ink and watercolours on paper. Two sheets joined. 520 x 1130mm. Watermark: crowned fleur-de-lis and 'D. C. Blauw'.