Hukoen. Of ou Hukeu.

Title

Hukoen. Of ou Hukeu.

Description

Decorative totla view of Hukou County.It is a county under the administration of Jiujiang City, in the north of Jiangxi Province, China, bordering Anhui province to the north.Nieuhof: L'ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine, 1665.

ca. 1693

Artist

Meurs, van (1619/20-1680)

Jacob van Meurs (1619-1680) was a well-known Dutch bookseller, engraver and publisher. The vast majority of books published by Meurs date from 1650 to 1680. At the beginning of his career, Van Meurs published some works on the history of Amsterdam and the Republic. Later in his career, van Meurs achieved some important successes in selling books on China, Japan, Africa and America. Previously, he worked with contemporaries such as Johan Nieuhof (1618-1672), Olfert Dapper (1636-1689) and Arnoldus Montanus (1625-1683). Van Meurs is even considered the leading printer of works across the non-European world for the period 1660-1680. Typical for these large, luxurious editions were the beautiful illustrations of unknown peoples and exotic places. In 1665 van Meurs achieved great success in this genre with the publication of Het Gezantschap by the Neêrlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, a geographical work on China. This book referred to the VOC's first legation before the imperial court in Beijing. The author of this book, world traveler Johan Nieuhof (1618-1672), had himself been involved in this mission and had been in Asia for some time when it was published in the Republic. At that time, the book had a major impact on China's European image. This success confirmed that there was sufficient demand for books that dealt extensively with colonies overseas and other distant locations. Van Meurs liked to respond to this public need and decided to continue focusing on this particular genre. In 1667 he published another work on China, China monumentis, this time by the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). Exactly a year later, in 1668, a precise description of the African countries was published, a work by Olfert Dapper (1636-1689) on Africa. This was the first attempt to summarize all available information about Africa in a single European language. Frontispiece of Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen of the East Indian Maatschappy in 't Vereenigde Nederland (1669) by Arnoldus Montanus, published by Jacob van Meurs. In 1669, Van Meurs published a book about Japan in collaboration with Arnoldus Montanus: commemorative Gesantschappen of the East Indian Maatschappy in 't Vereenigde Nederland. In the meantime, Olfert Dapper was working on a second book on China, descriptions of the Emperor of Taising von Sina, published by Van Meurs in 1670.

Historical Description

By the 15th century, Beijing had essentially taken its current shape. The Ming city wall continued to serve until modern times, when it was pulled down and the 2nd Ring Road was built in its place. It is generally believed that Beijing was the largest city in the world for most of the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.The first known church was constructed by Catholics in 1652 at the former site of Matteo Ricci's chapel; the modern Nantang Cathedral was later built upon the same site. The capture of Beijing by Li Zicheng's peasant army in 1644 ended the dynasty, but he and his Shun court abandoned the city without a fight when the Manchu army of Prince Dorgon arrived 40 days later. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty( the years 1420 to 1912). It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. When Hongwu Emperor's son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, and construction began in 1406 on what would become the Forbidden City. Construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers. It served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. Since 1925 the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artifacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties.