An embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, emperor of China : delivered by their excellencies Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keyzer, at his imperial city of Peking wherein the cities, towns, villages, ports, rivers, &c in their passages from Canton to Peking are ingeniously described by John Nieuhoff : also an epistle of Father John Adams, their antagonist, concerning the whole negotiation : with an appendix of several remarks taken out of Father Athanasius Kircher : Englished and set forth with their several sculptures by John Ogilby
London, England: Printed for the Author [i.e. Ogilby]
Summary
The 2d ed.</br></br>Jan Nieuhof (Dutch, 1618-1672) visited China in 1655 on a trade mission to the court of the Chinese Emperor. His account of the trip and description of China were initially published in Amsterdam in 1665, accompanied by illustrations based on first-hand observations. Nieuhof's Dutch account was thereafter translated into French, German, English, and Latin; and the illustrations were replicated at variable skill levels, sometimes in mirrored images. An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China... (1673), the second English edition, has been digitized here. This edition was translated by John Ogilby and published in London. The volume includes Nieuhof’s text, an additional narrative account by Father John Adams, an extensive appendix taken from Athanasius Kircher’s “Antiquities of China,” as well as over one hundred illustrations. These early images of China helped fuel a European fascination with Chinoiserie that continued into the next century, and Nieuhof served as a design source for ceramics, furniture veneers, metalwork and more. Nieuhof’s accurate representations of pagoda architecture are especially notable. In the 1760s, a pagoda was erected in London’s Kew Gardens, and Philadelphia’s Pagoda and Labyrinth Garden was created in 1828. UW-Madison, Memorial Library Special Collections holds several 17th century editions of Nieuhof, in Latin, German, English, and Dutch. The digitized volume is at call number G66 N55 1673.