N.p.n.d. [Hambourg, c. 1808].
Folio with (1) title page, 18 numbered copperplate engravings. Cold stamp of C. Suhr at the foot of each plate. Marbled paper boards, gilt fillet around the covers, flat spine, untrimmed. Contemporary binding.
369 x 235 mm.
First issue of this complete and very rare suite, of great documentary interest: title and 18 plates engraved on copper and finely colored at the time in watercolor and gouache representing one or several characters in Spanish costumes, on foot, on horseback or in carriage, most of them in very beautiful landscapes.
Colas 2833; Lipperheide 2357.
Don Pedro Caro y Sureda (1761-1811), Marquis of La Romana, was, alongside the English, one of the great Spanish generals of the Spanish War. In 1807-1808, the King of Spain, then allied with Napoleon, sent La Romana’s troops to garrison in Hamburg.
They are shown here by Suhr with women, families, servants, donkeys and horses. In the summer of 1808, La Romana sent them to Spain thanks to the English.
The interview of Erfurt brought together the emperor Napoleon I and the tsar of Russia Alexander I. Wanted by Napoleon, it was held in Saxony in Erfurt, from September 27 to October 14, 1808, with the aim of strengthening the Franco-Russian alliance concluded the previous year at the time of the treaty of Tilsit, signed following the war led by the Fourth Coalition.
The French armies, until then at the height of their glory, suffered their first major setback in Spain with the capitulation of General Dupont at Bailén, defeated by Spanish troops in July 1808. Napoleon wanted to solve the Spanish problem himself by taking part of the great army to Spain, but feared to be attacked in the East by Austria, which reinforced its armies.
A superb very fresh copy, preserved in its very elegant contemporary cardboard, a very rare condition, coming from the imperial library of Tsar Alexander I with an ex libris with arms.
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