PETER II ALEKSEEVICH (1715-1730), EMPEROR OF ALL RUSSIA Patent of the State Military Collegium promoting Guards quartermaster-sergeant (kaptenarmus) Andrei Omelyanov to sub-lieutenant. Moscow, 15 October 1729

Signed by Prince Grigory Dmitrievich Yusupov (1676-1730), presiding member of the State Military Collegium. One leaf, 20.5 x 33.5 cm, parchment. Printed form set in the civil typeface of the first third of the 18th century, with individual manuscript entries in chancery cursive. With remains of a fragment of the red wax state seal. On the recto, later archival and chancery annotations and No. 851; on the verso, registration notes and the surname ‘Omelyanov’. The document was issued by the State Military Collegium in Moscow on 15 October 1729. The Military Collegium was the supreme central body administering the Russian land forces. Further signatures: Stepan Lukich Ignatyev (d. 1747), brigadier and councillor of the State Military Collegium, later lieutenant general, Chief Commandant of St Petersburg and Vice-President of the Military Collegium; Pyotr Alekseevich Izhorin (b. 1690), long-serving chief secretary of the State Military Collegium (1726-1744), later state councillor; and secretary Vasily Kozlov. A rare official military document from the short reign of Peter II (1727-1730), Emperor of All Russia, who succeeded Catherine I on the throne. Grandson of Peter the Great, he was the last representative of the Romanov dynasty in the direct male line.