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[Lithograph Titled:] Novo Arkhangelsk. Na Severozapadnom Beregu Ameriki [i.e. New Archangel. On the North-West Coast of America]

[Tebenkov, Mikhail Dmitrievich]

St. Petersburg: Lith. of Prokhorov, 1851. Item #219

Lithograph 23x33,5 cm mounted on the original mount leaf 24,5x35 cm, with lithographed title and date on the lower margin of the album leaf. Three flattened creases on the upper margin of the lithograph, the album leaf with cut margins, strengthened with paper on verso, but otherwise a very good copy of this rare print.

Historically important view of New Archangel from a very rare «outstanding» (Lada-Mocarski) Atlas of the Northwest shores of America from Bering Strait to Cape Corrientes and of the Aleutian Islands… (St. Petersburg, 1852) compiled by Mikhail Tebenkov, an excellent Russian naval officer and surveyor, who was the governor of Russian America and the Chief Administrator of the Russian American-Company in 1845-1850. The view is very rare and is not present in all copies of the atlas which usually contains 40 maps: «A few copies of the Atlas have inserted, at the end, a lithographic view of the Port and City of New Archangel (Sitka), dated 1851» (Lada-Mocarski, 137). The lithograph shows the panorama of Sitka harbour with the Governor’s residence on the right (the flag of the Russian-American company waving above), churches and administrative buildings scattered along the shore, four Russian naval ships in the harbor, and the forest and snow covered hills of the Baranof Island in the background.

The Tebenkov atlas «is an outstanding and painstaking work by a naval officer and hydrographer who spent 25 years in Alaska and the North Pacific, reaching the highest position in the Russian-American colonies, that of Chief Administrator. During this time he used every opportunity of his own travels in this sea and land space to collect the necessary data; he also instructed his subordinates to do likewise» (Lada-Mocarski, 137).

Bibliography (about the Atlas in general): Wickersham 5921, Arctic Bibliography 26641; Phillips, vol. 1, no. 1229.

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