NIEUHOFF, Jean.

L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale

des Provinces Unies vers l'empereur de la Chine, ou Grand Cam de Tartarie, faite par les Srs. Pierre de Goyer, & Jacob de Keyser, illustre d'une tres-exacte description des villes, bourgs, villages, portes de mers, & autres lieux plus considerables de la Chine.

Stock Code 90389

Leiden, Meurs, 1665

£6,500.00 - £6,500.00

£6,500.00

£6,500.00 - £6,500.00

£6,500.00

The Dutch being at the height of their power, having supplanted the Portuguese, desired to gain access to China and a portion of the China trade. After much opposition the Government succeeded in sending certain merchants to try the pulse of the Chinese at Canton. Upon their report it was determined to despatch ambassadors from Batavia to the Court of Peking to solicit liberty to trade. This is the embassy written up by Nieuhoff, who was steward to the ambassadors. Its failure led the Dutch to send other embassies.

First French edition. Folio. 2 parts in 1, bound without additional engraved title, printed title printed in red and black with engraved vignette (short tear to lower blank margin), engraved portrait of Colbert, large folding map (short tear to fold, lightly browned), 34 double-page engraved plates, engravings in the text, light old waterstain towards end, contemporary mottled calf gilt, joints and extremities neatly repaired, a little rubbed, a very good copy.

Cordier Sinica 2345.

Provenance

Provenance: Bartholomew Gabriel Rolland, adviser to Parliament, President of the First Chamber of the Palais Queries (armorial bookplate); unidentified bookplate bearing the motto 'Laboremus'.

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Art and the East India Company

The public perception of the East India Company, an organisation which was to become one of Britain's most notorious colonial ventures, was mediated by a collective of artists. Diplomatic wrangling, imperial posturing, trade and warfare became the subjects of a significant artistic movement, aimed at depicting and dissecting the Company’s involvement in the political and social life of the period.

L'Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale