Extremely rare work on Russian costumes and the cries of St Petersburg, masterly drawn by a contemporary of Le Prince in a typical 18th-century style.
Dahlsteen was born in Stockholm in 1720. He was trained as an artist and at 23 and left his native city, first for Kassel and then Riga. In 1749 he visited St. Petersburg from where he returned to Kassel by 1753, presumably where he died in 1769.
Although the 'Nationalmuseum' of Stockholm holds a volume of his etchings, Dahlsteen's work related to Russia is very rare: we couldn't trace any copy at auction in the last 35 years and COPAC lists only one copy, in the British Library.

Quarto. 41 etched plates (of 49, lacking engraved title and plates 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 31, 35 & 41), captions printed in German and French; light marginal soiling and water-staining to some plates, corner tear to plate 30, but images clean. Loose in recent cloth solander box.

Colas 776.