GUIGNES Louis-Joseph de Voyages à Péking, Manille, et l’Ile de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784 à 1801.

Cordier, Bibl. Sinica, 2351 ; Lust 336 (without the atlas) ; Gay, 3307 ; Pardo de Tavera, 1287.

First edition.

Important report written by the French orientalist and sinologist, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes (1759-1845), son of the orientalist Joseph de Guignes, who had taught him Chinese. A correspondent of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the young Guignes is the author of an important dictionary, the Dictionnaire Chinois-Français et Latin (1813).

Appointed French consul in Canton in 1784, de Guignes resided in China until 1801, before returning to France. In 1793-1794, he accompanied the Dutch ambassador to Peking as an interpreter and was received on this occasion in the famous and sumptuous Summer Palace, which was destroyed by Lord Elgin's punitive expedition in 1860.

This work, a detailed and truthful account of the Dutch diplomatic mission, is the last European account of classical China before the Opium Wars and the westernisation of the empire. The atlas, of great interest, contains 66 plates with 98 beautiful figures, some of them engraved on copper by De Sève after drawings made by the author during the embassy: views, monuments, festivals, procession, description of the Summer Palace, carriages, boats, civil and military costumes, trades, plants, deities, etc.; a music plate and 6 maps (China, Macao, Philippines, Manila Bay), 4 of them folding, complete the illustration. A very good copy, complete with text and atlas.