Du Halde, Jean Baptiste.

First edition, 4 volumes, folio (425 x 280mm.), half titles, titles printed in red and black with engraved vignettes, dedication, engraved head-pieces, 65 engraved maps, plans and plates, many folding, 3 of the maps hand-coloured in outline, contemporary calf gilt, some occasional browning and staining, binding rebacked and restored in period style

Cordier, Sinica 46-47; Löwendahl 394; Lust 12; Sommervogel iv 35.11

The condition of this item is as described in the catalogue description
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A tall copy of the most comprehensive survey of China printed in the eighteenth century, drawn from the accounts and surveys (both published and unpublished) of twenty-seven Jesuits. This encyclopaedic work not only provided valuable information on Chinese political institutions, education, language, medicine, science, customs and artefacts, but also included the first appearance of 43 maps by d'Anville.

D'Anville's atlas volume can be regarded as the second western atlas of China, following on from that of Martino de Martini (lot 53), and the first scientific mapping of China, deriving from a triangulated survey carried out by French Jesuits, at the behest of the Emperor Kang Hsi, and forms the most important cartographic record of China from the eighteenth century.

The work contains the first separate printed map of Korea, the first printing of Jean-Baptiste Régis' account of that country, and the first detailed survey of Tibet, on nine sheets; the text also includes the first printed account of Alaska, describing Bering's 1728 expedition to the northern Pacific rim, through the eponymous straits.

Following on from the success of du Halde's work, d'Anville recast the maps as a separate atlas, published in The Hague in 1737.