English: A plate depicting the variety and development of Chinese characters from the French edition of Nieuhof's account of the 1655–1657 embassy of VOC agents to the Qing emperor Shunzhi. It includes fanciful "original" pictures besides versions of the Chinese characters for mountain (山), sun (日), dragon (龍), emperor (皇), bird (鳥), and chicken (雞); a series going one (一), ten (十), dirt (土), king (王), "pearl" (玊, presumably intending jade 玉), to live (生), and master (主); and four of the eight trigrams from the Book of Changes (I Ching or Yijing): ☰ ☷ ☳ ☶. The character M is intended to display Chinese cursive (草书) but is mangled to the point of incomprehensibility and no translation or other detail is provided in the text.
Johan Nieuhof (1618-1672); Jean-Baptiste Le Carpentier (1606-ca. 1670): Description générale de l'empire de la Chine... PART 2 of: 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, et Jacob de Keyser, illustrée d'une tres-exacte description ... de la Chine: enrichie d'un grand nombre de tailles douces / Le tout recueilli par le Mr. Jean Nieuhoff, ... ; mis en françois, orné, et assorti de mille belles particularitez ... par Jean le Carpentier, historiographe. Publisher: A Leyde : pour Jacob de Meurs, marchand libraire et graveur de la ville d'Amsterdam
Printer: Meurs, Jacob van Amsterdam, 1651-1680
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