Beschreibung:

IMPERIAL LIBRARY -- AMIOT, Jean Joseph Marie (1718-1793), and others. Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts; les moeurs, les usages, &c. des Chinois: par les missionnaires de Pekin. Paris: Nyon, 1776-1786. 12 volumes, 4° (255 x 195mm). Half-titles in volumes I-II & IX-XI. Engraved portrait frontispiece of Emperor Quianlong, engraved plates, some folding, and maps throughout. (Occasional light spotting and browning, a few volumes with light marginal staining.) Contemporary tree calf gilt, flat spines gilt in compartments, red and blue lettering-pieces, edges yellow (spines worn, some with loss, a few covers detached). Provenance : Imperial Foreign Library at Tsarskoe Selo (stamps) -- Calvin Bullock (bookplate). RARE FIRST EDITION. FROM THE LIBRARY OF EMPEROR ALEXANDER I AT TSARSKOE SELO, AND PROBABLY FIRST IN THE LIBRARY OF CATHERINE THE GREAT. A well margined set of this monumental survey of Chinese life in the 18 t h-century. It is a significant and early introduction of Eastern life, philosophy and language to the Western World. The work of Jesuit missionaries including Cibot, Bourgeois, Poirot, Ko and Yang, it comprises translations of classic Chinese works of law, maxims and proverbs, as well as essays on Chinese linguistics, current affairs and scientific observations. Volume VII is a reprint of Amiot's Art militaire des Chinois (Paris, 1772) -- the first translation into a European language of the ancient Chinese military strategy; while volume XII, the 'Vie de Confucius', was more complete and accurate than any previous text on the subject. Many of the fine engravings are based on Chinese designs sent by Amiot to Henri Bertin, minister in charge of Chinese affairs under Louis XVI. Four further volumes were published over the course of a number of years, the last nearly 30 years after the first in 1814; the presents set almost certainly consists of all those which had been published at the time they entered Catherine's library. Cordier 54-56; Lust 96. (12)