Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise [...].

4 vol., 4to: lxxx-488-[35], [6]-834, [6]-652, [4]-606-[128] pp.; 54 pl. (occ. spotting).

Contemp. mottled calf, gilt orn. spines with raised bands, red leather title labels, renewed marbled paper doublures, red spr. edges (one turn-in missing, another restored with part. missing, spines sl. cracked, bumped corners). Large margins copy.

Second French edition, actually a reprint of the 1st folio ed. (Paris, 1735), by J.B. Du Halde (1674-1743), French Jesuit and professor at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. This classic work is considered as one of the most important books on China of the time and the first to provide the West with accurate information about the Middle Kingdom. It gives an almost encyclopaedic survey of China, compiled from unpublished and printed works of seventeen Jesuits. Ill. with 55 pl. (19 fold., 4 with an additional explanatory leaf): 3 maps (borders enhanced with watercolour on the 2 general maps of China), 23 plans of cities, and 29 plates showing a wide variety of Chinese matters: ceremonies, artisans at work, costumes, portraits (Confucius, Jesuit missionaries incl. Verbiest, etc.), botany, numismatics, 1 pl. of music score, etc., many by J. C. Philips after A. Humblot, others by Humblot after J. van der Spyck, one by Philippe van Gunst, most unsigned, and 6 engr. in-text, engr. marks (2 different) on titles, woodcut head- and tailpieces and woodcut initials throughout. Title-pages printed in red and black. An Atlas was published separately in 1737 with the maps by d'Anville.
ref. Brunet II:868. - Cordier, Sinica, 48. - DBS IV:36.
Prov. Cornelis de Haan, Antwerp (ms. entry "voyage en Chine, 1953" and armorial bookpl. "Hemminga").