NIEUHOFF, Jan; OGILBY, John (trans.).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China. First edition in English of Nieuhoff's definitive account of the 1655-57 Dutch diplomatic mission to Beijing, the first VOC attempt to secure access to Chinese ports for trade. This edition provided the textual and visual reference points for many subsequent English-language books on China.As the expedition's steward, artist, and chronicler, Nieuhoff kept detailed journals of the proceedings. The plates, based on his now-lost watercolours, show Macau as seen from the water, Nanjing and its Porcelain Pagoda, Beijing and the Forbidden City, and "types", including a mandarin and a noblewoman. This was the first of Ogilby's "great atlases". Following Nieuhoff's account of the embassy is the section offering a "General Description of the Empire of China." "In it were included the drawing of some Chinese characters, a discussion of Confucius and Chinese philosophy, the clothing worn by Chinese, including a depiction of the bound feet of women, various burial customs, and an illustrated tale of beggars who tormented themselves in order to beg more successfully... Throughout, emphasis was placed on the unusual and the magnificent" (Van Eerde, pp. 96-8).The work was first published in Dutch and then French in 1665.

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