Jo Si Wo entre Tyen-Tsing-Wey et Peking tire de Nieuhof. / Jo-Si-Wo, tussen Tyen-Tsing-Wey en Peking, getrokken uit Nieuhof.

Title

Jo Si Wo entre Tyen-Tsing-Wey et Peking tire de Nieuhof. / Jo-Si-Wo, tussen Tyen-Tsing-Wey en Peking, getrokken uit Nieuhof.

Description

Decorative view of the city Jo-Si-Wo at the channel, Peking. From Histoire de Voyages

ca. 1746

Artist

Schley, van der (1715-1779)

Jakob van der Schley (1715 -1779) was a Dutch draughtsman and engraver. He studied under Bernard Picart (1673-1733) whose style he subsequently copied. His main interests were engraving portraits and producing illustrations for "La Vie de Marianne" by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688-1763), published in The Hague between 1735 and 1747. He also engraved the frontispieces for a 15-volume edition of the complete works of Pierre de Brantôme (1540-1614), "Oeuvres du seigneur de Brantôme", published in The Hague in 1740. Most of the plates in the Hague edition of Prévost's "Histoire générale des voyages" are signed by van der Schley.

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.