Nieuhof's manuscript journal of the Dutch embassy to China (1655 to 1657)
The handwritten journal and drawings behind Nieuhof's famous printed book on the Dutch embassy to the Qing court.
Full title Journal of some events on the voyage of the ambassadors Pieter de Goyer and Jacob Keyser to the mighty emperor of China and Tartary in the years 1655-1657 (autograph manuscript with 81 drawings)
Johan Nieuhof
Johan Nieuhof was steward to the Dutch East India Company embassy of Pieter de Goyer and Jacob Keyser, sent to the emperor of China and Tartary in 1655 to 1657, by way of Canton, Nanjing and Peking. This autograph journal, dated 1659, has 229 pages and 81 coloured pen drawings, made for the company directors before the printed book of 1665. It lets a reader separate what Nieuhof saw from what editors added. The atlas does not hold the text: the corpus knows only a Gallica digitisation of the manuscript.
- How they knew
- Eyewitness
- Who “Tartar” means here
- The Manchu (Qing) rulers of China, whom Dutch writers of the time called Tartars. The card notes the framing of the Manchu emperor as Tartar Khan.
- Why read it
- The unedited eyewitness base of the famous 1665 book, including how the Manchu emperor was framed as Tartar Khan.
- Watch out
- The catalogue lists the language as French, but the manuscript is Dutch. The atlas quotes nothing from this work.
What it says
No quotes from this one yet. Its text is out of reach for now, or the scan could not be read.
The fine print
How we know
firsthand The author saw the places or people described.
firsthand observation: autograph journal and drawings made for the VOC directors before the printed book
Research notes
- Catalogue dc:language reads "fre" although the manuscript is Dutch; record both. Relationship to the 1665 print studied by Blusse and Falkenburg (1987).
- Europeana surfaced this record (provider National Library of France).
Why it matters
The unedited eyewitness base of Nieuhof 1665: lets a researcher separate what the steward saw from what Van Meurs and Hendrik Nieuhof added, including the framing of the Manchu emperor as Tartar Khan.
Places named
China (Canton, Nanking, Peking)
Peoples named
Qing / Manchu court; Chinese